Perfume is magic. It's mystery. We recreate the smell of a flower. Of wood. Of grass. We capture the essence of life. Liquefy it. We store memories. We make dreams.

There's no one thing you can do to have success, but if you have a plan and you keep doing things, you'll eventually build to a success.

There is no glory in honesty if it is destructive. And no shame in dishonesty if its goal is to offer grace.

Keep in mind that television, magazines, movies, and even newspapers rarely show images of average-shaped bodies.

The secret, which is not so secret after all, is that the people who we love live on in our hearts, in the beat of our blood.

Is there a secret? Yes. Anaïs Nin and Pauline Réage and Anne Rampling and Erica Jong all knew it. E. L. James knows it. It is the secret behind all of our writing. And our reading. Arousal starts in the mind. And grows in the mind. The brain is the most erogenous zone in a woman’s body. That is our secret. And it is what we share.

More than 3,500 hardcover novels are published each year. Even the most avid reader buys fewer than one a week.