Forgiveness should be an act, but this is a state with him.

I suspect victims; they win in the long run.

I can't see or feel the conflict between love and religion. To me, they're the same thing.

Short of a small range of physical acts-a fight, murder, lovemaking-dialogue is the most vigorous and visible inter-action of which characters in a novel are capable. Speech is what characters do to each other.

Also, perhaps children are sterner than grown-up people in their refusal to suffer, in their refusal, even, to feel at all.

Some people are molded by their admirations, others by their hostilities.

No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye.