So I grew up in a very book-friendly environment and my education as a writer was reading. I think that's the best education. Reading, and taking from the people I admired.

Without death,' he answered, 'life is meaningless. It is a story that can never be told. A song that can never be sung. For how would one finish it?

America is thataway, Mr. Lincoln," laughed Davis, pointing north. "You're in Mississippi now.

Hug your children...Kiss your mothers and fathers, your brothers and sisters. Tell them how much you love them, every day. Because every day is the last day. Every light casts a shadow. And only the gods know when the darkness will find us.

All I ask is that my final months be happy ones, and that I be permitted a husband who will see to my proper Christian beheading and burial.

And I like a mouse who has taken a cat for its tutor.

On the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he speaks. And there is something of dignity in the way his trousers cling to those most English parts of him.