“Was there anything quite so painful, so fraught with the possibilities of hurt, as gift giving within a family?”

“Soon would come the night in which there was no more work not the work of the hands, nor the work of the mind, nor the work of the heart.”

“Still, for all that, her life had lacked passion. The demons had never come for her.”

“I think good conversation is really the best form of sex.”

“Were archaeologists really such a sex-starved lot as all that? Did pigs really sweat?”

“Education teaches children to lose interest in what matters most to them.”

“Power in society is achieved through control of the purse, pen, and politics.”

“You want to be a writer, don't know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen.”

“It's an imaginative thing we do; it's about immersing oneself in one's imagination. If you're a novelist, you do it with pen and paper. We do it with our bodies.”