A book that bores me to tears is a book that neglects character building and quality of prose.

Teddy grinned again. 'Truths are dangerous,' he said. -'Then why are you writing them in a book?' -'To catch them between the pages,' said Teddy, 'and trap them before they disappear.' -'If they're dangerous, why not let them disappear?' -'Because when truths disappear, they leave behind blank spaces, and that is also dangerous.

Fire sat unbreathing. A life that was an apology for the life of his father: It was a notion she could understand, beyond words and thought. She understood it the way she understood music.

If we're to be judged by our parents and grandparents, then we all may as well impale ourselves upon jagged bits of rock.

Then she marched to the pillows and beat them mercilessly until they lay puffed out like obedient clouds.

Only a person with the true heart of a dictionary-writer would be lying in bed, three days after being stabbed in the gut, worrying about his P's.

She crossed the room to him, put her arms around him, clung to him, turning her face to the side, learning all at once that it was awkward to show a person all of one's love when one's nose was broken.