But, like anyone in love, Madeleine believed that her own relationship was different from every other relationship, immune from typical problems.

We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.

Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.

When I wrote The Virgin Suicides, I gave myself very strict rules about the narrative voice: the boys would only be able to report what they had seen or found or what had been told to them.

Basically what we have here is a dreamer. Somebody out of touch with reality. When she jumped, she probably thought she'd fly

It was one of those humid days when the atmosphere gets confused. Sitting on the porch, you could feel it: the air wishing it was water.

In the end, the tortures tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple reasoned refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them, so full of flaws.

Depression is like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch it where it hurts. It's always there, though.

You never get over it, but you get to where it doesn't bother you so much.

It was like autumn, looking at her. it was like driving up north to see the colors.

She held herself very straight, like Audrey Hepburn, whom all women idolize and men never think about.

where there is never sunshine darkness isn't a scary thing

Competition is warfare. Mostly it is played by prescribed rules--there is a sort of Geneva Convention for competition--but it's thorough and often brutal.

There are plenty of wonderful, good fat people in the USA that have no problems being fat, who I have no problems with being fat.

You know, that's all basketball is. If someone loves something, and you take it away, it's like what does he do now? What does someone do? That's what happened with me.

Classical music presents some of the world's most challenging pieces.

Laughing and Love. They are both drugs.

He brought toys to the children because they were little and helpless, and because he loved them.

I gave away two dogs years ago because I felt guilty at not being able to give them the time and attention they deserved. I now regularly feed an army of squirrels and wild birds around our house.

"Okay," I said,hoping I sounded confident, like taking the life force out of ghouls was one of my favorite hobbies, right up there with knitting and sudoku.