I always felt that I was a writer, that was what I had to do.

Coincidences are the scars of fate.

Once, in my father's bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later—no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget—we will return.

I became a writer, a teller of tales, because otherwise I would have died... or worse.

In those days, Christmas still retained a certain aura of magic and mystery. The powdery light of winter, the hopeful expressions of people who lived among shadows and silence, lent that setting a slight air of promise in which at least children and those who had learned the art of forgetting could still believe.

Making money isn't hard in itself... What's hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one's life to.

The truth is what hurts