History, which interprets the past to understand the present and confront the future is the least rewarding discipline for a dying species.

Crime fiction confirms our belief, despite some evidence to the contrary, that we live in a rational, comprehensible, and moral universe.

Old age makes caricatures of us all.

If all power corrupts, then a doctor, who literally holds life and death in his hands, must be at particular risk.

All fiction is largely autobiographical and much autobiography is, of course, fiction.

Children live in occupied territory. The brave and the foolhardy openly rebel against authority, whether harsh or benign. But most tread warily, outwardly accommodating themselves to alien mores and edicts while living in secret their iconoclastic and subversive lives.

People were excited by violence. What, after all, was the sexual act but a voluntarily endured assault, a momentary death?