It was as though I had one map inside my head and it led to the man who was waiting for me. Someone who was alone - maybe even more alone - than I was.

Margaret thought of all she knew for certain, that day would always follow night that love was never wasted nor was it lost.

Never look at other people's bad fortune,' my mother said. 'If you do, it will come back to find you instead of its rightful owner.

Before she realized he was next to her, he had placed his hands over hers on the countertop, then hooped his fingers through hers. Gretel looked up at him, so startled she might as well have been shot. 'I just wanted to wake you up', he said. Which is exactly what he did. One look at him and her heart was racing. One look, and whatever had been before was all over.

Some stories stayed with you even when you wanted to forget them.

Being human means losing everything we love best in the world," she murmured as she released me. "But would you ask to be anything else?

I never see a novel as a film while I'm writing it. Mostly because novels and films are so different, and I'm such an internal novelist