You know you're writing a good thriller when you make yourself paranoid.

It's almost as if each instant is our last and first. We are always dying, and always reborn. And that is living.

Your leaders must know powerful magic. Yes, said one of the women. The magic is called Marx, Stalin, Lenin and Class Dialectics. It didn't sound like very powerful magic to me.

Because Chinese art is booming, it legitimizes this profession.

Somehow, I went from being too young, to being too old. Somewhere in there I must have been just right.

I’ve decided to pick my moment to retire very carefully – in about 200 years’ time.

I fell into shame like a suicide throws herself into a river. (253)

No one can think a thought for me in the way that no one can don my hat for me.

Accept who you are; and revel in it.

Blanche, prosaic in a pale yellow sweater and blue jeans, was wondering again if anything mattered—-life, faith--specifically, finishing homework assignments.

Look for companies that do not have a lot of debt.