But certain souls cohere. It's rare but possible. But it takes two powerful wills to make it so.

No matter how far back you cut a willow tree, it will never really die.

People left a lot of things behind when they went in the water. Their clothes, their stuff, their makeup, their fixed-up hair, their voices, their hearing, their sight—at least as the normally experienced them.

There was love expressed in the places you usually forget to look.

Something about giving in without a fight felt wrong.

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.

As a writer, you live in such isolation. It's hard to imagine your book has a life beyond you.