Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.

She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful.

You don't get explanations in real life. You just get moments that are absolutely, utterly, inexplicably odd.

The best thing about doing a signing tour is that numbers become faces. I got to sign books for six or seven thousand people, all of whom were dreadfully nice. Everything else, the interviews, the hotels, the plane travel, the best-seller lists, even the sushi, gets old awfully fast. Well, maybe not the sushi.

He had kissed her good night that night, and she had tasted like strawberry daiquiris, and he had never wanted to kiss anyone else again.

Work. Home. The pub. Meeting girls. Living in the city. Life. Is that all there is?

He had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once.