When I looked at her, she appeared to be a different person from the one I'd known... She had rewritten everything, our history together, our friendship. Now I was the girl who'd stolen Andres; the girl who'd lied to her about who I was. Therefore, she owned me nothing.

I don't really read as much as I used to. A lot of what I was looking for as an escape I find in writing. And the other thing is that I don't want to get into someone else's language when I'm working

She liked to disappear, even when she was in the same room as other people. It was a talent, as it was a curse.

I wept to think that life went on even when so much had been lost, that rain still fell and myrtle grew between the rocks.

I always quit at three when my kids come home from school so I feel pretty spoiled

That is the joy of reading fiction: when all is said and done, the novel belongs to the reader and his or her imagination.

Do people choose the art that inspires them — do they think it over, decide they might prefer the fabulous to the real? For me, it was those early readings of fairy tales that made me who I was as a reader and, later on, as a storyteller.