Can't you make them stop?' I asked her that day, wondering if there was anything in this woman I could speak to, if she had ever run joyfully over grass, or had watched flowers, or known delight or love.

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.

On the moon we wore feathers in our hair, and rubies on our hands. On the moon we had gold spoons.

I'm going to put death in all their food and watch them die.

Let him be wise, or let me be blind; don't let me, she hoped concretely, don't let me know too surely what he thinks of me.

I came to believe that being a private detective was the work I was meant to do.

The first book is the book you have to write to get back at your parents; the book you always had in you. Once you get that out of your way, you can start writing books.