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

I think calling it climate change is rather limiting. I would rather call it the everything change.

Children were vehicles for passing things along. These things could be kingdoms, rich wedding gifts, stories, grudges, blood feuds. Through children, alliances were forged; through children, wrongs were avenged. To have a child was to set loose a force in the world.

But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

Time rises and rises, and when it reaches the level of your eyes you drown.

That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before.