A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.

When insolvent, pack minimally, with a valise tough enough to be thrown onto a London pavement from a first- or second-floor window. Insist on hotel rooms no higher.

Humans live in a pit of cheating, exploiting, hurting, incarcerating. Every time, the species wastes some part of what it could be. This waste is poisonous.

It'll be all right." Julia's gentleness makes it worse. "In the end, Jace." "It doesn't feel very all right." "That's because it's not the end.

So little is actually worthy of belief or disbelief. Better to strive to coexist than seek to disapprove . . .

Trees're always a relief, after people.

Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword.