I do believe that characters in novels belong to their writers and their readers pretty equally. I've learned a lot of things about the characters I write from people who read about them. Readers expand them in ways I don't think of and take them to places I can't go.

Developing characters is a strange thing. In the beginning they are abstract and I wonder how to move on from there.

Let me love you, but don't love me back. Do love me and let me hate you for a while. Let me feel like I have some control, because I know I never do.

Life isn't just fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all. -William Goldman

When your about to criticize someone walk a mile in thier shoes, that way when you criticize them you're a mile away from them and you have their shoes

Exactly! We run or we lose ourselves in something, somebody, anything to try and ease our pain.

Ruins stood for what was lost, and yet there were beautiful-peaceful, historic, intellectual. Not tragic or regrettable. Lena tried to keep hers that way too, and she succeeded to some extent. Why not celebrate what you had rather than spend your time mourning its passing? There could be joy in things that ended.