There are thousands of proteins in the cells, some of them very large chains of molecules. And the cell doesn't function if one of those chains of molecules isn't there, and you start looking at the complexity of life and the mystery of life, and then start thinking about things like the twenty universal constants, that if any one of them from Plank's minimum to the mass of a proton, if one of them is the tiniest bit off, there would be no life or possibility of it in the universe.

Life, Stormy says, is not about how fast you run or even with what degree of grace. It's about perseverance, about staying on your feet and slogging forward no matter what.

Literary fiction, as a strict genre, is all but dead. Meanwhile, most genres flourish.

What doesn't quicken dies. That's an indisputable truth of life.

Evil was coming. I wondered whose face it would be wearing.

I admit to having an imagination feverish enough to melt good judgment.

The hatred of truth is the taproot of violence.