“...how gracious seem the small gifts that may come - a patch of sunlight on a cold floor, an unexpected gesture of friendship, the fragrant steam of hot tea.”

“Mom, I can take care of myself, and I've been doing a pretty good job of it for quite some time. Besides, I enjoy the peace and quiet of coming home alone...no unexpected interruptions." Victoria said, trying to convince herself.”

“Do it.Do it right.Do it right now.”

“Negotiating the Goodreads interface is like returning a giraffe's eyelashes to their follicles after a Napalm attack using only a rolling pin and a bucket.”

“I started out hoping to remind people at some point in the novel that we should be loving and kind. But then the theme usurped my life, spilling over into my novels until love was no longer a small voice, but now my purpose as a writer.”

“[P]eople only make decisions based on what they know. You can have everyone in the country vote freely and democratically and still come up with the wrong answer - if the information they base that decision on is wrong. People don't want the truth [when] it is complicated. They don't want to spend years debating an issue. They want it homogenized, sanitized, and above all, simplified into terms they can understand...Governments are often criticized for moving slowly, but that deliberateness, it turns out, is their strength. They take time to think through complex problems before they act. People, however, are different. People react first from the gut and then from the head...give that knee-jerk reflex real power to make its overwhelming will known as a national mandate instantly and you can cause a political riot. Combine these sins - simplification of information and instant, visceral democratic mandates - and you lose the ability to cool down. There is no longer deliberation time between events that may or may not be true and our reaction to them. Policy becomes instinct rather than thought.”

“How much wrong have we done unintentionally, meaning the best”