He liked the fact that Venice had no cars. It made the city human. The streets were like veins, he thought, and the people were the blood, circulating everywhere.

When I am thickening my plots, I like to think 'What if ... What if ... ' Thus my imagination can move from the likely, which everyone can think of, to the unlikely-but-possible, my preferred plot.

Perhaps it was freedom itself that choked her.

But there were too many points at which the other self could invade the self he wanted to preserve, and there were too many forms of invasion: certain words, sounds, lights, actions his hands or feet performed, and if he did nothing at all, heard and saw nothing, the shouting of some triumphant inner voice that shocked him and cowed him.

The kiss became the narrowed center of the still point of the turning world, so that even the park was turning in comparison to the still peace at their lips.

For neither life nor nature cares if justice is ever done or not.

one blow in anger [would] kill, probably, a child from aged two to eight. Those over eight would take two blows to kill.