I've spoken out my whole life against the idea of simply dismissing whole areas of fiction by saying it's "genre" and therefore can't be seen as literature.

One night when my longing for her was like a fire burning out of control in my heart and my head, I wrote her a letter that just seemed to go on and on. I poured out my whole heart in it, never looking back to see what I'd said because I was afraid cowardice would make me stop. I didn't stop, and when a voice in my head clamored that it would be madness to mail such a letter, that I would be giving her my naked heart to hold in her hand, I ignored it with a child's breathless disregard of the consequences.

I start work around 8 a.m. and usually finish around noon. If there's more to do, I do it in the late afternoon, although that isn't prime time for me.

You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for... and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you.

I don't want to go to the heaven that I learned about when I was a kid. To me, it seems boring.

Understand death? Sure. That was when the monsters got you.

She felt like someone who drowns remembering what it was like to still be on the boat, so calm and at ease, so carelessly safe