In her way, she was a hard one. Faith in any sort of natural justice was nothing but a night light; she knew of that. Whatever she did, she would end the same way with everyone does: flat on her back with a tube in her nose, wondering, "Is this all?

Hannibal at eighteen was rooting for Mephistopheles and contemptuous of Faust, but he only half-listened to the climax. He was watching and breathing Lady Murasaki...

I expect most psychiatrists have a patient or two they'd like to refer to me.

I'm doing one of three things: I'm writing. I'm staring out the window. Or I'm writhing on the floor.

Writing novels is the hardest thing I've ever done, including digging irrigation ditches.

It's fear, Jack. The man deals with a huge amount of fear.' Because he got hurt?' No, not entirely. Fear comes with imagination, it's a penalty, it's the price of imagination.

Problem-solving is hunting; it is savage pleasure and we are born to it.