"I don't want anyone to look to me, not for protection, not for happiness, not for love, not for anything."
- P.D. James
"Not so much two ships passing in the night as two ships sailing together for a time but always bound for different ports."
"People were excited by violence. What, after all, was the sexual act but a voluntarily endured assault, a momentary death?"
"Learn to write by doing it. Read widely and wisely. Increase your word power. Find your own individual voice though practicing constantly. Go through the world with your eyes and ears open and learn t..."
"All Jane Austen novels have a common storyline: an attractive and virtuous young woman surmounts difficulties to achieve marriage to the man of her choice. This is the age-long convention of the roman..."
"The city which lay below was a charnel house built on multi-layered bones centuries older than those which lay beneath the cities of Hamburg or Dresden. Was this knowledge part of the mystery it held ..."
"He was discovering that even hatred died a little at the end. But it still lasted longer than desire, longer even than love."
"The weekend break had begun with the usual resentment and had continued with half-repressed ill humour. It was, of course, his fault. He had been more ready to hurt his wife's feelings and deprive his..."
"Charm is often despised but I can never see why. No one has it who isn't capable of genuinely liking others, at least at the actual moment of meeting and speaking. Charm is always genuine; it may be s..."
"I learned early and at that kitchen table that there are ways of avoiding, without guilt, the commitments of love."