Phyllis explained to him, trying to give of her deeper self, 'Don't you find it so beautiful, math? Like an endless sheet of gold chains, each link locked into the one before it, the theorems and functions, one thing making the next inevitable. It's music, hanging there in the middle of space, meaning nothing but itself, and so moving...'

People go around mourning the death of God; it's the death of sssin that bothers me. Without ssin, people aren't people any more, they're just ssoul-less sheep.

I'm always looking for insights into the real Doris Day because I'm stuck with this infatuation and need to explain it to myself.

Wickedness was like food: once you got started it was hard to stop; the gut expanded to take in more and more.

From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few.

To be a human being is to be in a state of tension between your appetites and your dreams, and the social realities around you and your obligations to your fellow man.

The muttered hint, "Remember, you have a stroke here," freezes my joints like a blast from Siberia.