She couldn’t get any farther away inside from her skin. She couldn’t get away.

I got used to being a writer. To compare it to teaching - I taught for twenty-five years; for the first two or three years it was heady. I was discovering that I could do something and do it well. Be useful to people. It was exhilarating, sort of like the first two weeks of being in love with somebody, and then it becomes like the third bite of pizza. The first bite is wonderful. The second bite is not disappointing. The third? Meh. You get used to it.

Hiding under the bed doesn't make the worry stop.

Rebellion is necessary for development of character.

People can be unimaginably foolish...and they can be unimaginably grand, at times.

...When this map was made, there was only empty forest in the south," Gran told Birle."Not empty," Granda corrected her. "The forest is never empty.

I was no scholar in college, and was arrogant about what I thought.