All I could think to do was love her. That's all a person can do.

She got tired of herself. She got tired of not being able to say what she wanted or do what she wanted or even want what she wanted.

Gestating characters feels something like the mental equivalent of gestating a baby. In both cases, to create them you lose yourself. Or at least you reshape yourself to encompass them.

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.

She had never had a boy talk to her like that. There was no cover of bullshit, no flirtation, no added charm, but his look was searing. He was different from anyone she had known.

Maybe they would look at each other and feel some odd yearning, but neither of them would know why. They would want to stop, but they would be embarrassed, and neither would know what to say. They would go their separate ways. Who knew? Maybe that happened every day to people who'd once loved each other.

I'm afraid of time... I mean, I'm afraid of not having enough time. Not enough time to understand people, how they really are, or to be understood myself. I'm afraid of the quick judgements or mistakes everybody makes. You can't fix them without time. I'm afraid of seeing snapshots, not movies.