As the new work fills my notebooks, I've come to realize that the characters in my stories were so real because I really did want to get close to people, I really did want to know them. It was just easier to do it on paper, one step removed.

It's not something you can prove....I know you hate to hear this, but you either have it, or you don't.

[She] had felt straight away that she wasn’t meeting a new friend, but recognizing an old one.

Writing music uses a whole different process that involves a lot of noodling and just seeing what comes.

You don't have to be Michelangelo to teach basic art, just as you don't have to be Shakespeare to be able to teach the correct use of language.

When one of my characters becomes aware of a magical element, it might be because the world is wider than we assume it to be, but it might also be a reminder to pay attention to what is here already, hidden only because it's been forgotten.

An now the silences come in a single lifetime, in a single year... when species die, leaving a silent space in the world song that can never be filled.