I will not compromise on language or content. At 15, people can handle the same language as me, they're just as complicated as me and are very interested in thinking about important questions for the first time.

However much you love somebody, you should always keep a part of yourself to yourself. Never give it all. You can never be yourself otherwise.

Readers are made by readers - it is so obvious it is almost banal to say it.

We resent being faced with facts we'd prefer to ignore as much as being wrongly accused of doing something we haven't.

She was--I keep using the past tense; I ought to say she is--one of those people who, at first sight, look plain, are quiet, unassertive, unmemorable even. But who, when they start to talk and you get to know them, become more and more attractive and impressive, and you see that in fact they are beautiful. Not conventionally beautiful, not celebrity beautiful, but beautiful all through.

History dies without the present. There is no future without the path made to it by the past.

I cannot live without reading.