Couples are jigsaw puzzles that hang together by touching in just enough points.

After all, coffee is bitter, a flavor from the forbidden and dangerous realm.

So before I start work on a book, I'm like a pregnant mole - I obsessively tidy and order my closets and everything in my study. Because there's such a cascade of images and ideas that I'm grapping with mentally, I couldn't also be in a chaotic setting.

Much of life becomes background, but it is the province of art to throw buckets of light into the shadows and make life new again.

Nature is also great fun. To pretend that nature isn't fun is to miss much of the joy of being alive.

The idea of safety had shrunk into particles - one snug moment, then the next. Meanwhile, the brain piped fugues of worry and staged mind-theaters full of tragedies and triumphs, because unfortunately, the fear of death does wonders to focus the mind, inspire creativity, and heightens the senses. Trusting one's hunches only seems gamble if one has time for seem; otherwise the brain goes on autopilot and trades the elite craft of analysis for the best rapid insights that float up from its danger files and ancient bag of tricks.

Nature neither gives nor expects mercy.