He stepped off the pavement like a man jumping off a bridge, as calm as a swimmer with an ocean out below. Lucy had known what he was going to do the instant their eyes met. She'd know what he intended because she would have done the very same thing if she'd had his courage. Nothing was going to break his fall.

I wasn't quite as certain that I knew her soul. When it came right down to it, I wasn't sure she knew me either.

I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself

I saw the end of his life right there in that single moment. His pride, his decency, his secrets, his death.

Just because something is unspoken doesn't mean that it disappears.

Sometimes they would sit in the parlor together, both reading – in entirely separate worlds, to be sure, but joined somehow. When this happened, other people in the family couldn't bring themselves to disturb them. All that could be heard in the parlor was the sound of pages, turning.

I hate it when people tell me the end of the story because my mother always read the last page of a novel first to see whether she wanted to read it. It was a strange reading habit.