My soul was a burden, bruised and bleeding. It was tired of the man who carried it, but I found no place to set it down to rest. Neither the charm of the countryside nor the sweet scents of a garden could soothe it. It found no peace in song or laughter, none in the company of friends at table or in the pleasures of love, none even in books or poetry.... Where could my heart find refuge from itself? Where could I go, yet leave myself behind?

Power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed.

Fiction writing is a strange business when you think about it. You sit down and weave a network of lies to explore deeper truths.

So many bad things have happened to them that they can't trust the good things. They have to shove them away before someone can get it back.

Eastern Connecticut is very different from Western; we're more liverwurst than pâté, more bowling than polo.

Change what you can, accept what you can't, and be smart enough to know the difference

People waste their happiness - that's what makes me sad. Everyone's so scared to be happy.