You can stay up all night and still not count all the ways to lose the people you love.

I am always consulted about covers, and give feedback, but I am also aware that what causes a customer to pick a book up off a shelf in the UK is very different from what causes a customer to pick a book up in the US.

You can argue that it's a different world now than the one when Matthew Shepard was killed, but there is a subtle difference between tolerance and acceptance. It's the distance between moving into the cul-de-sac and having your next door neighbor trust you to keep an eye on her preschool daughter for a few minutes while she runs out to the post office. It's the chasm between being invited to a colleague's wedding with your same-sex partner and being able to slow-dance without the other guests whispering.

If you want something to be true badly enough, you can rewrite it that way, in your head. You can even start to believe it.

It seems to me that no matter what religion you subscribe to, acts of kindness are the stepping-stones to making the world a better place--because we become better people in it.

There are certain things I do not talk about.

But what if your obsession has nothing to do with drugs or thrills or money? What if what you want most in the world is to recapture the way life was a week, a month, a year ago-and you are willing to do whatever it takes?