Coherence and closure are deep human desires that are presently unfashionable. But they are always both frightening and enchantingly desirable. "Falling in love," characteristically, combs the appearances of the word, and of the particular lover's history, out of a random tangle and into a coherent plot.

I like feeling my way into different minds and experiences. It comes naturally and always has.

Harm can come about without will or action. But will and action can avert harm.

What I need to write well is a combination of heat, light and solitude.

I grew up with that completely fictive idea of motherhood, where the mother never strayed from the kitchen. All the women in my books are very afraid that if they do anything with their minds they won't be complete women. I don't think my daughters' generation has that feeling.

There are things that happen and leave no discernible trace, are not spoken or written of, though it would be very wrong to say that subsequent events go on indifferently, all the same, as though such things had never been.

Ice burns, and it is hard to the warm-skinned to distinguish one sensation, fire, from the other, frost.