But nothing disturbs the feeling of specialness like the presence of other human beings feeling identically special.

she was so much a personality and so little anything else that even staring straight at her he had no idea what she really looked like.

I feel as if I'm clearly part of a trend among writers who take themselves seriously - and I confess to taking myself as seriously as the next writer.

Birds were like dinosaurs' better selves. They had short lives and long summers. We all should be so lucky as to leave behind such heirs.

We may freak out globally, but we suffer locally.

I had a Viking sense of entitlement to whatever provisions I could plunder.

You could slap his wrist for saying it, but then he said it with his face, and you could spank him for making faces, but then he said it with his eyes, and there were limits to correction-no way, in the end, to penetrate behind the blue irises and eradicate a boy's disgust.