Von Loewe really should know me well enough by now to realize that I am not going to face my execution without a fight. Or with anything remotely resembling dignity.

Don't know how I kept going. You just do. You have to, so you do.

I sometimes think young people are not given nearly enough credit for their ability to appreciate literary flourish.

Nothing like an arcane literary debate with your tyrannical master while you pass the time leading to your execution.

We are a sensational team.

I tend not to attempt to describe pain. I don't feel I can comprehend or re-create the personal suffering of others, so I simply try to tell what happened, or what I imagine happened. I also think it helps to let the reader fill in a lot of the blanks. Melodrama is patronizing. With a straightforward statement, readers can figure out for themselves what's going on.

It never occurred to him that now he was looking at his master, at the one person in all the world who held his fate right between her palms - me, in patched hand-me-downs and untrimmed hair and idiot smile - and that my hatred for him is pure and black and unforgiving. And that I don't believe in God, but if I did, if I did, it would be the God of Moses, angry and demanding and OUT FOR REVENGE.