With preference came point of view; with point of view, personality; with personality, uniqueness; with uniqueness, grief.

'Ape House' is an ambitious novel in several ways, for which it is to be admired, and it is certainly an easy read, but because Gruen is not quite prepared for the philosophical implications of her subject, it is not as deeply involving emotionally or as interesting thematically as it could be.

Love is a general emotion. Marriage is exactingly specific.

Twenty-five, he was. Twenty-five tomorrow. Some years the snow had melted for his birthday, but not this year, and so it had been a long winter full of cows.

A horse herd was, in its very essence, the manifestation of the expression 'It's always something.

Eavesdrop and write it down from memory - gives you a stronger sense of how people talk and what their concerns are. I love to eavesdrop!

Charles Dickens was an avid seeker of names - he read directories and looked for odd names on gravestones.