Beneath all of her thoughts and worries, beneath the complication of conflicting identities and needs, maybe it's as simple as loving the way some other person looks when they're sleeping.

It is the strain of walking around the world-down the street, riding city buses and elevators, moving from place to place to place-and not knowing who might want to destroy you, who might like to fill your heart with poison, who might rob you and stab you, who might stand above you in the dark with a tarantula.

Beneath all of her thoughts and worries, beneath the complication of conflicting identities and needs, maybe it's as simple as loving the way some other person looks when they're sleeping.

The world of evil is only as evil as we allow it to be.

What I've learned is that there is nothing in this life that does not fail to disappoint us, even our own deaths.

Sacrifice doesn't really exist on a national level anymore and that's a pretty new thing - most people aren't engaged nationally in some form of service and that changes the way you think about people in your country; you kind of think of them at a distance. And so there's that shift away from some sort of sacrifice - thinking of yourself as the most important thing in the world versus thinking of yourself as some sort of a whole.

I always feel super uncomfortable when it's like ah, there probably has to be a sex scene. I feel really bad and then always look around to see if anyone is watching me while I'm writing. I want to apologize to people who have to read those sex scenes, but I feel like it's part of the characters life, it's important.