As soon as she'd met him at the arrivals gate on his return from Thailand, lithe and brown and shaven-headed, she knew that there was no chance of a relationship between them. Too much had happened to him, too little had happened to her.

…she was discovering once again that reading and writing were not the same — you couldn't just soak it up then squeeze it out again.

The fact was I loved my wife to a degree that I found impossible to express, and so rarely did.

I want my best friend back, she thinks, because without him nothing is good and nothing is right.

When you're reading a book, you're always looking for the natural place to stop. With a movie, you can't really have that sense of it coming momentarily to a halt; there's pressure to keep the momentum up.

I'm trying to be inspiring! I'm trying to lift your grubby soul for the great adventure that lies ahead of you!

The city had defeated her, just like they said it would. Like some overcrowded party, no one had noticed her arrival, and would notice if she left.