I think all writers of my age who are brought up on films probably by the age of 16 have seen many more films than they have read classics of literature. We can't help but be influenced by film. Film has got some great tricks that it's taught writers.

A book you finish reading is not the same book it was before you read it.

Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword.

I got a rejection letter from an editor at HarperCollins, who included a report from his professional reader. This report shredded my first-born novel, laughed at my phrasing, twirled my lacy pretensions around and gobbed into the seething mosh pit of my stolen clichés. As I read the report, the world became very quiet and stopped rotating. What poisoned me was the fact that the report's criticisms were all absolutely true. The sound of my landlady digging in the garden got the world moving again. I slipped the letter into the trash... knowing I'd remember every word.

Do," said Louisa finally, "whatever you can't not do.

These jokes the world plays, they're not funny at all.

My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?