With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people.
Become such as you are, having learned what that is.
Whatever happens to you, embrace it, the good and the bad equally. Death is just one more thing to be embraced.
I had a novel in the back of my mind when I won an Ian St James story competition in 1993. At the award ceremony an agent asked me if I was writing a novel. I showed her four or five chapters of what would become 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' and to my surprise she auctioned them off.
Alternate history fascinates me, as it fascinates all novelists, because 'What if?' is the big thing.
I'm a lapsed Quaker. I don't go to meetings any more. But I'm very drawn to Catholicism - all that glitter. I'd love to be a Catholic. I think it would be fantastic - faith, forgiveness, absolution, extreme unction - all these wonderful words. I don't think anyone who was ever born a Catholic hasn't died a Catholic, no matter how lapsed they are.
Sylvie's knowledge, like Izzie's, was random yet far-ranging, 'The sign that one has acquired one's learning from reading novels rather than an education.
No self is of itself alone. It has a long chain of intellectual ancestors. The 'I' is chained to ancestry by many factors. . . This is not mere allegory, but an eternal memory.
I think as an American society, when we're paying too many taxes or dealing with war, we don't want to see sad things at the movies.
. . . If humility does not precede all that we do, our efforts are fruitless.
Consequences don’t just go away. They aren’t suddenly dissolved just because forgiveness has been desired or given.