Without memory there can be no insight. Without love, there can be no appreciation.

What I have always wanted more than revenge is to bring the other person to recognition of the pain they caused, so they essentially say, "I will never do that again."

I claim Dickens as a mentor. He's my teacher. He's one of my driving forces.

There are too many other inexplicable things around us--horrors, threats, mysteries that draw you in and then inevitably disenchant you. Back to the predictable and humdrum. The prince is never going to come, everybody knows that; and maybe Sleeping Beauty's dead.

But death we are, and death we've always been.

Who has a right to tell me I have no gift, no talent, no passion ...' he murmured. 'Why do people say those things to you when youre young? Doesn't seem fair, does it?' 'No, darling, it's not fair,'she said. 'But the mystery is why you listen.

I read The Old Curiosity Shop before I began Blackwood Farm. I was amazed at the utter madness in that book.