We were told that we had to win. Against whom? The atom? Physics? The universe? Victory is not an event for us, but a process.

Death is the fairest thing in the world. No one's ever gotten out of it. The earth takes everyone - the kind, the cruel, the sinners. Aside from that, there's no fairness on earth.

Is there anything more frightening than people?

Show me a fantasy novel about Chernobyl--there isn't one! Because reality is more fantastic.

Back then everyone was saying: "We're going to die, we're going to die. By the year 2000, there won't be any Belarussians left.

I’m all alone against the darkness. Dark winds rising against me.

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.

I feel more influenced in my own work by dreams than I do by other writers' works in a way. Or by popular culture, movies - what else is there to write about than love and loss?

Please God, we're all right here. Please leave us alone. Don't send death in his fat red suit and his ho-ho baritone.

To be is not a choice, but the way you feel about it certainly is.

We've consistently seen, since the late 1990s, that more than half of women believe that abortion should be severely restricted or abolished altogether.

The California cemeteries make dying sound so attractive it's a real effort to keep breathing.

Also, as an author, character has always been what I'm most interested in - much more so than plot or setting, although those are good things too.

I'm not angry. I can't sing that loud for that long anyway, I'll start coughing - I don't have the instrument for it. I don't feel that emotional. I'm at peace.

I was a normal kid. I rebelled. But I've never been a liberal. And there have been all kinds of efforts to make me one. I've not bothered to tell any of these stories. Folks, we all face them.