Reality isn't what it used to be.

No one's life should be rooted in fear. We are born for wonder, for joy, for hope, for love, to marvel at the mystery of existence, to be ravished by the beauty of the world, to seek truth and meaning, to acquire wisdom, and by our treatment of others to brighten the corner where we are.

... and she had worn bitterness as though it were a crown.

Not all or even most suffering is at the hands of fate; it befalls us at our invitation.

The world needed a little Evil, so Good had something to compare itself to, but you couldn't let it think it had the right-of-way on the road and an invitation to dinner.

Readers will stay with an author, no matter what the variations in style and genre, as long as they get that sense of story, of character, of empathetic involvement.

In our age, self-indulgence and self-destruction, rather than self-sacrifice, are the foundations for new heroic myths.