But give me more credit than that. Someone else may have dealt the hand, but I picked it up off the table, I played every card, and I had my reasons.

Some people are little Chernobyls, shimmering with silent, spreading poison: get anywhere near them and every breath you take will wreck you from the inside out.

I wanted to tell her that being loved is a talent too, that it takes as much guts and as much work as loving; that some people, for whatever reason, never learn the knack

Her forehead was a maze of anxious little grooves, from a lifetime of wondering about whether everyone within range was OK.

A bore or an uggo might manage not to get up anyone's nose, but if a girl's got brains and looks and personality, she's going to piss someone off, somewhere along the way.

Don't you ever feel that - that you just need to get away? From everything? That it's all too much?

I hate nostalgia, it's laziness with prettier accessories.

We think about mortality so little, these days, except to flail hysterically at it with trendy forms of exercise and high-fiber cereals and nicotine patches.

The thing about being a mystery writer, what marks a mystery writer out from a chick lit author or historical fiction writer, is that you always find a mystery in every situation.

I don't do that kind of negativity. If you put your energy into thinking about how much the fall would hurt, you're already halfway down.

I had been right: freedom smelled like ozone and thunderstorms and gunpowder all at once, like snow and bonfires and cut grass, it tasted like seawater and oranges.

We all have that one friend that walks into your home like its their home

I welcome the President and working with him to try to get some of that medical malpractice reform so we can get the cost of health care to come down.

My academic identity is that of a folklorist, and for many years I have taught only folklore courses.

O Lord, I cannot plead my love of Thee: I plead Thy love of me: - the shallow conduit hails the unfathomed sea.

Without transcendence, life has no beauty.

The thing to be wished for, is not that the mountains should become easier, but that men should become wiser and stronger.

There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.

One year after the United States led the invasion of Iraq, the country remains extremely dangerous not only to our troops, but also to the stability of the world.

Time passed slowly, like and old man climbing a hill.

I think, therefore matter is capable of thinking.