Dying in unfamiliar surroundings miles away from home, it cannot possibly be good. There is a great sadness about that I think.

I think the Americans are dying to leave Iraq. I was against the war but longed for the fall of Saddam; the decision to go to war clearly was taken long before the matter reached the U.N., given its inevitability. I kept my fingers crossed for the emergence of democracy in Iraq even if that would mean victory for a man whose politics I have little sympathy with.

We know so little about each other. We lie mostly submerged, like ice floes, with our visible social selves projecting only cool and white.

A story lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken

When its gone, you'll know what a gift love was. you'll suffer like this. So go back and fight to keep it.

What can it be about low temperatures that sharpens the edges of objects?

Novels help us to resist the temptation to think of the past as deficient.