The ornament of beauty, Shakespeare wrote, is suspect. And he was right. But beauty itself, unadorned and unaffected, is sacred, I think, worthy of our awe and our loyalty.

He wanted to ask her what sound a heart made when it broke from pleasure, when just the sight of someone filled you the way food, blood, and air never could, when you felt as if you'd been born for only one moment and this, for whatever reason, was it.

Choice, I've always believed, is all that separates us from animals.

I was not going to use writing for advertising or journalism. I would tend bar, load trucks, chauffeur - do whatever it took. But from the moment I took my first writing workshop, I was a writer.

The best thing that can happen to people entering creative professions is the dwindling of all other possibilities.

You've learned that every good lie is threaded with truth and every accepted truth leaks lies.

Do you know the primary difference between men and gods? ... Gods don’t think they can become men