Real life doesn't have to be convincing, but fiction does.

But standing in that hallway, it was all coming back to me. Memories were waiting at the edges of things, beckoning to me.

Nobody will ever hurt her. She’ll just smile her faint vague wonderful smile and walk away.

So, you figure they won't notice you're back?" sneered the marquis. "Just, 'oh look, there's another angel, here, grab a harp and on with the hosannas'?

Of course, everyone's parents are embarrassing. It goes with the territory. The nature of parents is to embarrass merely by existing, just as it is the nature of children of a certain age to cringe with embarrassment, shame, and mortification should their parents so much as speak to them on the street.

Delirium: 'What's the name of the word for the precise moment when you realize that you've actually forgotten how it felt to make love to somebody you really liked a long time ago?' Dream: 'There isn't one.' Delirium: 'Oh. I thought maybe there was.'

I'm a fairly undisciplined writer.