Niall: We're tossed by the winds of fate. Once we end where they blow us, we make of ourselves that we will.

Love without trust? It's not love at all.

I got you a present." "Did you?" "It's a book of poetry--romancy stuff. I thought, 'How schmaltzy is that,' so it seemed like the thing. Then I screwed up and left it in my desk at work

I think writer is a word without gender, and a good writer observes, absorbs, hopefully empathizes then translates that into character and story. You don’t have to do or be or have experienced, traveled to, but you have to imagine all of that, very well–and believe it completely during the bubble of the work.

Hey. Hands off.” ", "“Please. Please, please, soooo pretty. Lemme just have one little touch.” "“Peabody, isn’t it embarrassing enough you’re wearing pink cowboy boots, again, without standing here drooling on my coat?”", [J.D. Robb, Celebrity In Death]

She was singed, bleeding, bruised, and furiously alive.

She gazed toward the marsh that grew thicker, deeper, greener with approaching summer. Mosquitoes whined in there, breeding in the dark water. Alligators slid through it, silent death. It was a place where snakes could slither and bogs could suck the shoe right off your foot. And it was a place, she thought, that went bright and beautiful with the twinkling of fireflies, where wildflowers thrived in the shade and the stingy light. Where an eagle could soar like a king. There was no beauty without risk. No life without it.