Roger Collins wasn't the most popular teacher at school only because he was interesting in class. In fact, most of the girls would have loved a little after-class attention from this teacher.

Life's one great lesson was: Do not care. Not caring was a person's real protection.

Humiliation, by the way, is a truly terrible emotion. It's at the bottom of the pile.

The same way that some people can play the piano, I can do plots! They just come!

Love was more than blind. It was deaf and dumb, too. It was catatonic. It was vegetative.

She figured if you weren't woman enough to carry your doughnuts with pride, you shouldn't be eating them.

Ella's supersonic voice followed her all the way to Bleecker Street and then dissolved amid the noisy profusion of shops, cafes, and restaurants and the crush of people that made the West Village of Manhattan unique in the world. In a single block you could buy fertility statues from Tanzania, rare Amazonian orchids, a pawned brass tuba, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, or the best, most expensive cup of coffee you ever tasted. It was the doughnuts, incidentally, that attracted Gaia.