"Depression is the most unpleasant thing I have ever experienced. . . . It is that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. The absence of hope. That very deadened feeling, which is so very different from feeling sad. Sad hurts but it's a healthy feeling. It is a necessary thing to feel. Depression is very different."

"After sixty years the stern sentence of the burial service seems to have a meaning that one did not notice in former years. There begins to be something personal about it."

"This was one of those non-glamorous parts about college that people never tell you about - worrying that the dilapidated apartment hosting a party would fall apart with you in it."

"She turned off all the lights in the duplex and peered out the windows, moving from one room to the next to see if she could catch sight of the a black sedan. Security lights and streetlights in her complex cast a strange orange glow on the misty snow. It looked like the perfect night for a murder."

"People took what they wanted, they clutched at coincidences, the few there were, and made a life from them. . . . Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains."

"I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting."

"I think scent is sensual. I guess evoking a mood or a spirit is key, and I think with the women's fragrances we have evoked different types, moods or sensibilities of a woman - whether it's Daisy with the sweetness and the innocence or Lola which is more provocative, sexy and sultry."

"State-sanctioned marriage is a civil contract, period. A contract is not a judgment of moral value. It is a legal agreement between two parties that testifies to a meeting of minds between those consenting entities. It is not a religious act or rite and so has nothing to do with Adam and Eve or Steve or even Harvey."

"Bernier turned in her chair, smiled, and shook their hands. Dana’s heart skipped a beat as she stood inches away from one of New York’s most glamorous and adored women."