Conversion does not mean a change of outward appearance; rather it requires a change of mind and results in a transformed life.

Emotional states are fairly quick bursts of neuronal gossip. Traits, on the other hand, are more like the neuronal equivalent of committed relationships.

To go where no one else has ever gone before is the secret of heroism.

Literature can stop my heart and execute me for a moment, allow me to become someone else.

Charles went to kiss her shoulder.-Leave me alone! she said, you're creasing my dress.

Reading any piece of writing aloud is an acid test, particularly when it comes to dialogue. There were writers I'd always admired who suddenly rang false when I spoke their words in our living room.

If you imagine that everything is an exchange, then we're supposed to just transact and walk away. If we haven't walked away and we still have a relationship, it's because there's a debt.

Every work of art depicts an aspect of reality.

Money confounds subordination.

The supposition that it was possible for any woman to be so mean-spirited as not at least to wish to tear out her rival's eyes was too hard for the digestion of the Cry.

Youth is the ultimate limited resource.