Chicago has disappointed her enemies and astonished the world

Place has always been important to me, and one thing today's Chicago exudes, as it did in 1893, is a sense of place. I fell in love with the city, the people I encountered, and above all the lake and its moods, which shift so readily from season to season, day to day, even hour to hour.

No one cared what St. Louis thought, although the city got a wink for pluck.

Beneath the stars the lake lay dark and sombre," Stead wrote, "but on its shores gleamed and glowed in golden radiance the ivory city, beautiful as a poet's dream, silent as a city of the dead.

Whenever I finish a book, I start with a blank slate and never have ideas lined up.

I'm very perverse. If someone tells me I have to read a book, I'm instantly disinclined to do so.

Leaves hung in the stillness like hands of the newly dead.