The seeds of destruction lie in the definition of "chosen-ness" and can easily blossom into bigotry. It's not inevitable but it needs constant care to avoid.

I don't want you to write about what you know, because you don't know anything. I don't want to hear about your boyfriend or your grandma... I'm getting a little tired of 'my life story as fiction'. Please don't tell me about your little life - is there nothing larger? More important?

Sifting daylight dissolves the memory, turns it into dust motes floating in light.

In a way, her strangeness, her naiveté, her craving for the other half of her equation was the consequence of an idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay, or knew the discipline of the dance, or strings, had she anything to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor, she might have exchanged the restlessness and preoccupation with whim for an activity that provided her with all she yearned for. And like an artist with no art form, she became dangerous.

The presence of evil was something to be first recognized, then dealt with, survived, outwitted, triumphed over.

From my point of view, your life is already a miracle of chance waiting for you to shape its destiny.

All paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.