Dialogue is the place that books are most alive and forge the most direct connection with readers. It is also where we as writers discover our characters and allow them to become real.

Humanity, perhaps, that quality of benevolence that humans have, without irony, named after themselves.

Boredom is a terrible affliction of the soulless.

...the air seeming to gather around her like held breath. As if this whole place were a story about her.

A man once said, 'All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.' Mark Twain, you know. He had a fine mustache. Men of wisdom so often do.

And they were quiet but their blood and nerves and butterflies were not—they were rampantly alive, rushing and thrumming in a wild and perfect melody, matched note for note.

Nothing made you feel so useless as another person's grief.