In the midst of my skeptical, cynical, often pessimistic nature exists a slender capacity to believe, if only temporarily, in a guiding, unseen power, and whenever this happens, I go with it. That's what inspiration is. You don't get it from the gods. You make it.

But, like anyone in love, Madeleine believed that her own relationship was different from every other relationship, immune from typical problems.

They made us participate in their own madness, because we couldn't help but retrace their steps, rethink their thoughts, and see that none of them led to us.

If Mitchell was ever going to become a good Christian, he would have to stop disliking people so intensely.

Whenever we got a glimpse, their faces looked indecently revealed, as though we were used to seeing women in veils.

Regret, already sogging me down, burst its dam. It seeped into my legs, it pooled in my heart.

Jacques Derrida is a very important thinker and philosopher who has made serious contributions to both philosophy and literary criticism. Roland Barthes is the one I feel most affinity for, and Michel Foucault, well, his writing influenced my novel, 'Middlesex.'