A scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.

People wonder how they are ever going to change their lives, but really it is frighteningly easy.

It was the month of May and there was warm sunshine dripping through the holes between the clouds, like the sky was a broken blue bowl and a child was trying to keep honey in it.

Horror in your country is something you take a dose of to remind yourself that you are not suffering from it.

I'm always determined that as a novelist I'm going to go out there and research my characters very thoroughly before I start writing.

We leave it up to books and movies to talk about WWII on our behalf.

your culture has become sophisticated, like a computer, or a drug that you take for a headache. You can use it, but you cannot explain how it works. Certainly not to girls who stack up their firewood against the side of the house.