It can be hard to write a skillfully entertaining fiction, but a great book wants to be more, and wants more from us.

most hated by the dark, for their name is light.

The military preferred - invariably - those who could be readily defined, assigned roles, understood, and controlled.

She had been a solitary child, and then solitary as a woman, drawn into an orbit of her own that took her away from others, even those who would be her friends.

A hard truth: that courage can be without meaning or impact, need not be rewarded, or even known. The world has not been made in that way. Perhaps, however, within the self there might come a resonance, the awareness of having done something difficult, of having done . . . something.

As many have noted, the peril for authors is that our work space is too easily our play space.

Why did becoming accustomed to something have to render its pleasures stale.