I have a hard time isolating what it is in myself that makes me so fascinated with the theme of identity, because I came from a normal upper middle-class family. And yet, as I look back at my books, the uses of power, issues of identity, they have - it's recurrent. It happens again and again.

Courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to carry on with dignity in spite of it.

I adore the company of other writers because they are so often lively minds and, frequently, blazingly funny. And of course, we get each other in a unique way.

At the end of the day, perhaps the best argument against capital punishment may be that it is an issue beyond the limited capacity of government to get things right.

What kills a person at twenty-five? Leukemia. An accident. But George knows the better odds are that someone who passes at that age dies of unhappiness. Drug overdose. Suicide. Reckless behavior.

After a week, it's better. I miss her. I mourn her. But some peace has returned. She had been so unattainable - so young, so much a citizen of a different era - that it is hard to feel fully deprived.

The purpose of narrative is to present us with complexity and ambiguity.