The fuzzy boundary lines between different readership ages have always puzzled me, so these days I just write what comes, and assume I can fix the mess later with an editor's help.

I don't believe in miracles, but if the need is great, a girl might make her own miracle.

The people you save won't celebrate you. They'll gather the wood and cheer while you burn.

Did we risk our lives to defend a just society, where guilt must be proven and not assumed? Or are we no better than the oppressive kings from whom our fathers fled?

Like a soldier back from battle you fill my vision. You're a flood, a baptism I'd forgotten, and the force of you leaves me breathless.

And what rules of economy dictate that a boy without a foot is more whole than a girl without a tongue?

I nod. Young love is not always forever. I know.

It's a cold world when no one will touch you.

I have to trust that if a story is strong, it can find its readership, and good editors can steer me well.

A miracle that can never be: your face, your hands, pledged to me.

I always want readers to lose themselves completely in a story and feel something, whatever the book invites them to feel. That experience is the best takeaway any book can offer.

What your critics say about you is unimportant. You are what you think of yourself.

Bite them before they Bite you.

He didn't blame James for falling in love with her, she was a radiant, deserving woman. He knew, however, that love only did one thing. It got in the way.

And thus goes segregation which is the most far-reaching development in the history of the Negro since the enslavement of the race.

Never underestimate the narcissism of a writer.

If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialist.

Hollywood's schizophrenia over guns is matched only by their attitude toward taxes. Ever wonder why they film in Vancouver so often? It ain't for the beaches, I can tell you.

In my mid-age I do feel more at peace - not with the world, but with myself.

Death approaches, which is always impending like the stone over Tantalus: then comes superstition with which he who is imbued can never have peace of mind.

We must enter and take possession of the consciences of the children, of the consciences of the young, because they do belong, and should belong to the revolution.