When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets," Papa would say, "she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing.

Perhaps the strongest evidence that women have as broad and deep a capacity for physical aggression as men is anecdotal. And as with men, this capacity has expressed itself in acts from the brave to the brutal, the selfless to the senseless.

American culture is torn between our long romance with violence and our terror of the devastation wrought by war and crime and environmental havoc.

I have been a believer in the magic of language since, at a very early age, I discovered that some words got me into trouble and others got me out.

[I] am reading No Ordinary Joes. Should have had a medical checkup before I started it. Colton makes us fall in love with these guys, then puts our hearts in harm's way. It's lovely and ghastly and extremely powerful. His best yet.

I think genetic research is a fascinating and fertile area.

They thought to use and shame me but I win out by nature, because a true freak cannot be made. A true freak must be born.