“I’m very headstrong. Once I’ve caught fire, there’s no dousing the flames—all engines full speed ahead.”

“The secret to making yourself stronger is to absorb the strength of the people around you—energy begets energy.”

“Hear me now or regret it later: Everything you write must be read aloud. Once all the context items are in place, this is the final test for any written piece...Do not neglect your sense of hearing in the process of writing and reading. As a longtime teacher of English as a foreign language, I can tell you on good authority that you have been listening to the English language at least five or six years longer than you have been writing and reading. And, most probably, your ears also had eighteen or more years of familiarity with the language before you began to read or write with a writer's sensibility. For these reasons, your ears know when things sound okay, good, beautiful, strange, awkward, or just plain bad, before your eye can pick up on such things...Your written voice should burn with the fire of fervent prayer, soothe like a friend's voice during a late-night phone call, alure like a lover's whisper. You must, through your accessible, infinitely read-aloudable voice, make your audience into an insatiable reader of your words.”

“He’s different from anyone I’ve ever encountered before, and it’s not just because his energy is fire-engine red; there’s something more…something seductive and dangerous. I feel it like a whisper meant only for me.”

“Could it be that first love was the only true love? And that after those first fires had been doused or burned out, men and women chose whom they would love based on worldly needs, and then reenacted the rituals and feelings of that first pure experience - nursed the flames that once burned of their own accord...”

“All at once, life seemed very full.”

“My cape caught fire. I dived to the sand and rolled on the ground to snuff the flames. So much for my grand entrance.”