Part of the beauty of fiction is that we come alive in a body that we don't own.

He realized that he had thought only about the first step, never imagined the last.

I think the Northern Ireland accent is one of the most beautiful in the world.

Stories are there to be told, and each story changes with the telling. Time changes them. Logic changes them. Grammar changes them. History changes them. Each story is shifted side-ways by each day that unfolds. Nothing ends. The only thing that matters, as Faulkner once put it, is the human heart in conflict with itself. At the heart of all this is the possibility, or desire, to create a piece of art that talks to the human instinct for recovery and joy.

No shame in saying that I felt a loneliness drifting through me. Funny how it was, everyone perched in their own little world with the deep need to talk, each person with their own tale, beginning in some strange middle point, then trying so hard to tell it all, to have it all make sense, logical and final.

I'm only telling you on the truth," he said. "If you can't stand the truth, don't ask for it.

Téa Obreht is the most thrilling literary discovery in years