Rust, corrosion, wind, rain. The nibbling teeth of mice and the acrid droppings of insects and the devouring jaws of years. The was of nature upon machines, of the planet's chaotic forces upon the works of humankind. The energy that man had pulled from the earth was being inexorably pulled back into it, sucked like water down a drain. Before long, if it hadn't happened already, not a single high-tension pole would be left standing on the earth. Mankind had built a world that would take a hundred years to die. A century for the last light to go out.

It had never occurred to her that God would cry, but of course that was wrong. God would be crying all the time. He would cry and cry and never stop.

What strange places our lives can carry us to, what dark passages.

I saw my one purpose in that moment, looking into that little girls eyes. I was the one who was meant to save her, that was my one purpose all this time.

A baby was a fact. It was a being with a mind and a nature, and you could feel about it any way you liked, but a baby wouldn't care. Just by existing, it demanded that you believe in a future: the future it would crawl in, walk in, live in. A baby was a piece of time; it was a promise you made that the world made back to you.

And I had always liked vampire stories because they are great material that can be refashioned in lots of ways.

I'm an ecumenical reader, grew up with all sorts of fiction, teach writing, went to the Iowa Writers' Workshop, so my tastes and interests are broad.