Her visits to her former hometown were infrequent and often painful. Pilgrimages fueled by the tepid oxygen of family duty, unease, guilt. The more Esther loved her parents, the more helpless she felt, as they aged, to protect them from harm. A moral coward, she kept her distance.

Writing is a solitary occupation, and one of its hazards is loneliness. But an advantage of loneliness is privacy, autonomy and freedom.

Often in gothic novels there's a large house, an estate, and it's symbolic of that culture. Usually it's sort of moldering or rotted or something, and sometimes it's a whole community.

Art is the highest expression of the human spirit.

A writer’s life is in his work, and that is the place to find him.

I learned long ago that being Lewis Carroll was infinitely more exciting than being Alice.

To be knocked out doesn't mean what it seems. A boxer does not have to get up.