If a stranger taps you on the ass and says, "How's the little lady today!" you will probably cringe. But if he's an American, he's only being friendly.

They seemed to be able to choose. We seemed to be able to choose, then. We were a society dying of too much choice.

There are some women who seem to be born without fear, just as there are people who are born without the ability to feel pain ... Providence appears to protect such women, maybe out of astonishment.

Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants.

At moments like this I envy those who have found a safe haven in which to bestow their hearts; or perhaps I envy them for having a heart to bestow. I often feel that I myself am without one, and possess in its stead merely a heart shaped stone.

Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it.

Science fiction, to me, has not only things that wouldn't happen, but other planets.