That is human nature, that people come after you, willingly enough, provided only that you no longer love or want them.

All scholars are a bit mad. All obsessions are dangerous.

Floyd could imagine a dozen things that could go wrong; it was little consolation that it was always the thirteenth that actually happened.

Pedro of Portugal's rapt and bizarre declaration of love, in 1356, for the embalmed corpse of his murdered wife, Inez de Castro, who swayed beside him on his travels, leather-brown and skeletal, crowned with lace and gold circlet, hung about with chains of diamonds and pearls, her bone-fingers fantastically ringed.

My professional and human obsession is the nature of language, and my best relationships are with other writers. In many ways, I know George Eliot better than I know my husband.

If the law can be broken it will. Anyone who breaks the law is a risk. You can break the law. So you see, I have to take you in for questioning. This produce stand has an ominous future.