Nor did I need anyone's pity, but I would accept it with grace, because I have been well trained. Rudeness was a sign of weakness. Grace stemmed from power, the powere to accept anything and move on.

You don't even realize you're living in a before until you wake up one day and find yourself in an after.

Don't go looking in dark places, because dark things live there.

The only thing more dangerous than a willingness to ignore the Law is an ability to change it.

I should probably start with the blood.

Teen fiction should be about teenagers - no matter how many arguments there are about what YA lit should be, this seems like the one thing we can all agree on.

I believed in happily ever after as much as anyone, because Jane Austen, Prince Charming, and Hugh Grant promised me it could happen. But maybe that particular delusion was universal.

But things don't just fall apart. People break them.

Not that my arms are getting tired or anything, but... how much longer is the hugging phase going to last?

Full Disclosure: I hate David with the passion of a thousand fiery suns all going to supernova at the same time

In dreams you can become everything you're not. You can reverse the most fundamental truths of your life. You can taste death, the ultimate opposite.

Nobody's perfect. Well, there was this one guy, but we killed him....

I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full.

To become richer, earn more. To appear richer, move into a poorer neighborhood.

Alliances and international organizations should be understood as opportunities for leadership and a means to expand our influence, not as constraints on our power.

The hardest thing about being productive is not the work, but the split second it takes to decide to take control.

It is the artist's job to revere beauty without being enchanted by it, to aim for it but also to aim for truth and goodness - just in case they, and not beauty, are the real things of value.

An Osage tribal study found that between $41 million to $50 million left a 50-mile radius around their own casino

We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction.

Id like to live in the Greek islands

I cant retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver. Youd have to remove the music from me surgically—like you were taking out my appendix.