A cliché is like a coin that has been handled too much. Once language has been overly handled, it no longer leaves a clear imprint.

She kissed me on the mouth. Her mouth tasted like iced coffee and cardamom, and I was overwhelmed by the taste, her hot skin and the smell of unwashed hair. I was confused, but not unwilling. I would have let her do anything to me.

When you're a little kid, you are small, your life is small - and you're terrifically aware of that. But when you read, you can ride Arabian horses across the desert, you can be a dogsledder.

I tried writing fiction as a little kid, but had a teacher humiliate me, so didn't write again until I was a senior in college.

In a perverse way, I was glad for the stitches, glad it would show, that there would be scars. What was the point in just being hurt on the inside? It should bloody well show.

I could hear the icy winds of Sweden, but he didn't seem to feel the chill.

Once you get below the floor of our personal identities, we're all connected. Perhaps that's why we can move into others' lives.