I was at the tail end of the family. The next brother along was already seven years older than me. I remember growing up by myself, playing games by myself.

Even things which seem separate and finished are infinitely connected and will infinitely connect. This connection happens as soon as you let it, as soon as you engage - as soon as you even attempt to engage.

Happy is what you realize you are a fraction of a second before it's too late.

What shop did this book come from? she asked. Her father was looking worried at the cooker. He always got rice wrong. I don't know, Brooksie, he said, I don't remember. That was unimaginable, not remembering where a book has come from! and where it was bought from! That was part of the whole history, the whole point, of any book that you owned! And when you picked it up later in the house at home, you knew, you just knew by looking and having it in your hand, where it came from and where you got it and when and why you'd decided to buy it.

The proper word for me," Robin Goodman says, "is me.

Words are like untying a corset - you can move into this great space with them.

There is a kind of poetry, bad and good, in evrything, everywhere we look.