One can't help but marvel at the variety of ways that women had devised to make us look like flaming idiots.

I always counsel aspiring novelists that passion is the most important quality for a writer to possess - technique can be taught, but that relentless desire to write has to come from within.

Seduction is merely encouraging a man to do something he already wants to do.

Alone-sex didn't count. It's like the difference between thinking to yourself or having a good conversation with someone--the pleasure is in the exchange.

Easy, Marks,' he whispered. 'One of us has to have some self-control, and it really should be you.

It was a confirmation of a connection that already existed. And it was a bond that extended far beyond the borders of a shared living space. We would have stayed together even without a marriage certificate . . . but I believed in the permanence it represented. It was a piece of paper you could build a life on.

If you have to tell someone they call the shots, they're not really calling the shots.