Ask her what she craved, and she'd get a little frantic about things like books, the woods, music. Plants and the seasons. Also freedom.

I was 46 when 'Cold Mountain' came out. I was settled. We had a nice house in Raleigh and a horse farm.

That's just pain she said. It goes eventually. And when it's gone, there's no lasting memory. Not the worst of it anyway. It fades. Our minds aren't made to hold on to the particulars of pain the way we do bliss. It's a gift God gives us, a sign of His care for us.

We are not strong enough to stand up against endless grief, And yet pain is the constant drone of life. So if we are to have any happiness at all, it is only in the passing instant.

All I can say is that we are mistaken to gouge such a deep rift in history that the things old men and old women know have become so useless as to be not worth passing on to grandchildren.

Claim your space. Draw a circle of light around it. Push back against the dark. Don't just survive. Celebrate.

Publishers give you deadlines for those last phases of production that are perfectly comfortable for them. So, to whatever extent I can, I like to push those to give me a little more time, and make it so that they're as uncomfortable as I am.