I began my writing career in a very isolated place and time.

Some men just aren't cut out for paternity. Better they should realize it before and not after they become responsible for a son.

Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart.

But pain seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?

Women do desperately need models for power other than the maternal.

I don’t duel, boy. I kill as a soldier kills, which is as a butcher kills, as quickly, efficiently, and with as least risk to myself as I can arrange.

All the worry people expend over not existing after they die, yet nary a one ever seems to spare a moment to worry about not having existed before they were conceived. Or at all. After all, one sperm over and we would have been our sisters, and we'd never have been missed.