I could almost hear the characters inside, murmuring and jostling, impatient for me to open the cover and let them out.

I will go out again this very night with my rockets and fuses. I will blow them straight out of their comfortable beds. Blow the rooftops off their houses. Blow the black, wretched night to...

DNA tells you all the secrets of life,’ he used to say. Except for one—how to live it.

Together in our house, in the firelight, we are the world made small.

Hope is the crystal meth of emotions. It hooks you fast and kills you hard.

She smells of her cooking and the perfume Eau d’Hadrien. My mother wore it, too. She used to cook, like Lili. Our house smelled of garlic and thyme instead of sadness.

It’s a good thing you and your pills weren’t around a few hundred years ago or there never would have been a Vermeer or a Caravaggio. You’d have drugged “Girl with a Pearl Earring” and...

Who knew that listening to a guy sleep could be so much deeper than sleeping with a guy.

I think your vision gets better as you get older.

Cry your grief to God. Howl to the heavens. Tear your shirt. Your hair. Your flesh. Gouge your eyes. Carve out your heart. And what will you get from Him? Only Silence. Indifference.

A new word. Bright with possibilities. A flawless pearl to turn over and over in my hand, then put away for safekeeping.

Because in a small dark room, a broken child lies on a filthy bed and stares up at a high window. He waits for me, too.And I—I who have failed at everything and have failed...

He who cannot endure the bad will not live to see the good.

I need a boy who thinks with his big head, not his little one. Since they do not exist, I have fashioned my own.

There were times when I lifted my face to the sky, stretched my arms wide to the winter night, and laughed out loud, so happy was I.The memory of it makes me laugh now, but...

One expects decent people to stand up for the good of all. Decent people shut their doors and hide behind them as decent people do. Massacres could never happen if it weren’t for decent people.

…Listen to your own thoughts and feelings very carefully, be aware of your observations, and learn to value them. When you’re a teenager—and even when you’re older—lots of people will try to tell you what...

Because I’m on the phone, Mom!””Fooling around with your friends again! Who is that?””Ahmadinejad.””Oh, my goodness! What is he saying?””That he wants to see Jeezy at the Beacon tonight. Putin’s going too. He scalped a...

I grew up on a mixed diet of mass and class, and I still read that way. I hate it when people apologize for what they read. Some bestsellers aren’t exactly literary. So what? They’re...

C’est pas assez que tous tu dis c’est de la merde, François? Tu veux coucher dans la merde, aussi?

The greenest of pastures are right here on earth.

Life, Rose well knew, could throw some hard punches at you, but nothing hurt as much as losing a child, or seeing one of your children hurt and suffering. Becoming a parent changed you forever,...

When you can write music that endures, bravo. Until then, keep quiet and study the work of those who can.

Because just for a few seconds, someone else hurts, too. For just a few seconds, I’m not alone.

History is a Rorschach test, people. What you see when you look at it tells you as much about yourself as it does about the past.

The more obscure our tastes, the greater the proof of our genius.

As I nodded and smiled and umm-hmm’d and oh, my’d my way down the drive, I wondered if boys had any sort of magazine that told them how to attract women and, if so, did...

Because beautiful things never last. Not roses nor snow… And not fireworks, either

You should spend more time reading the Good Book and less reading all those novels. What are you going to tell the Lord on Judgement Day when He asks you why you didn’t read your...

It goes on, this world, stupid and brutal.But I do not.I do not.

Most of the mess that is called history comes about because kings and presidents cannot be satisfied with a nice chicken and a good loaf of bread.

French Louis Seymour of the West Canada Creek, who knew how to survive all alone in a treacherous wilderness, and Mr. Alfred G. Vanderbilt of New York City and Raquette Lake, who was richer than...

I’m wishing he could see that music lives. Forever. That it’s stronger than death. Stronger than time. And that its strength holds you together when nothing else can.

I have done this—made the sad prince laugh. Made his grieving parents smile. None but me. Think you only kings have power? Stand on a stage and hold the hearts of men in your hands....

And I knew in my bones that Emily Dickinson wouldn’t have written even one poem if she’d had two howling babies, a husband bent on jamming another one into her, a house to run, a...

She’s got a big belt around her hips. It has a shiny buckle with PRADA on it, which is Italian for insecure.

History is fiction.

What I saw next stopped me dead in my tracks. Books. Not just one or two dozen, but hundreds of them. In crates. In piles on the floor. In bookcases that stretched from floor to...

You can’t argue with the dead, no matter what you say, they always have the last word.

Think you only kings have power? Stand on a stage and hold the hearts of men in your hands. Make them laugh with a gesture, cry with a word. Make them love you. And you...

I don’t know what I was hoping for. Some small praise, I guess. A bit of encouragement. I didn’t get it. Miss Parrish took me aside one day after school let out. She said she’d...

Beautiful people don’t need coats. They’ve got their auras to keep them warm.

I play until my fingers are blue and stiff from the cold, and then I keep on playing. Until I’m lost in the music. Until I am the music–notes and chords, the melody and harmony....

Becuse God loves us, but the devil takes an interest.

For mad I may be, but I will never be convenient.

Had you but seen it, I promise you, your high-minded principles would have melted like candle wax. Never would you have wished such beauty away.

And Robespierre, the Incorruptible, who loved us so much he cut off our heads so we would not be troubled by too many thoughts.

Right now I want a word that describes the feeling that you get–a cold sick feeling, deep down inside–when you know something is happening that will change you, and you don’t want it to, but...

Only the hopeless love God.

And then I remember this morning and I wonder if it really happened or if I dreamed it. It was nice. And weird. And tender. I’m not used to tender. It’s a fossil, that word....