I thought what if death is more like thinking, well, war is like the boss at your shoulder, constantly wanting more, wanting more, wanting more, and then that gave me the idea that Death is weary, he's fatigued, and he's haunted by what he sees humans do to each other because he's on hand for all of our great miseries.

An attribute of Rosa Hubermann, she was a good woman for a crisis.

Have faith, Ed, all right?' I search the coffee mug, but there's none in there.

Stealing it, in a sick kind of sense, was like earning it.

I think to be writer you have to enjoy being alone. I was a loner as a teenager and was always drawn to characters in books and films who were at the fringes.

She could smell the pages. She could almost taste the words as they stacked up around her.

The point is, it didn’t really matter what the book was about. It was what it meant that was important.