I first foreswore motherhood when I was about eight years old. ... [Children] were annoying. We were loud and sneaky and broke things. As an eight-year-old, maybe I was simply mortified by the prospect of being saddled with myself.

Funny how the nature of a normal day is the first memory to fade.

Though surely to avoid attachments for fear of loss is to avoid life.

Lovers communicate not inside sentences, but between them. Passion lurks within interstice. It is grouting rather than bricks.

A lot of people get so hung up on what they can't have that they don't think for a second about whether they really want it.

When you've been afraid of something for long enough and it comes to pass, the terrible thing is a release. For in the belly of the badness there is no more fear.

One of my problems with terrorism is that it's self-evidently bad. The main thing that makes it complicated is the fact that it works. When you go at it with a moral hammer, it's really, really bad. It's so bad you wouldn't believe it because you don't accomplish anything. I think the one thing terrorists themselves are vulnerable to is mockery. It's an excellent weapon.