Writers and books are cheap dates, especially when you compare the cost of a book with a ticket to the opera - or an NHL game.

You quickly find, when you are a hand-reader as I am, that nothing interests people so much as themselves.

She had no images of this love. She could offer no anecdotes. It was a belief rather than a memory.

Axiom: you are a sea. Your eye- lids curve over chaos My hands where they touch you, create small inhabited islands soon you will be all earth: a known land, a country.

...we must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing.

Under the old system - which is now so archaic that a lot of people can't remember it - if you wanted money you had to go to the bank and take the money out in cash form, and you couldn't take out money that you didn't have. But with the credit card you can spend money you don't have, and that is just so tempting.

How old do you have to get before wisdom descends like a plastic bag over your head and you learn to keep your big mouth shut? Maybe never. Maybe you get more frivolous with age.