I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.

For me - showing a half-finished manuscript is tricky. Just as a bird will get spooked and abandon her eggs if some outside party comes around and makes too much noise or pokes around the nest too intrusively - well, that's what it's like for me if I show work too early and I get a lot of editorial suggestions at the wrong time.

Taking on challenging projects is the way that one grows and extends one's range as a writer, one's technical command, so I consider the time well-spent

Who was it said that coincidence was just God’s way of remaining anonymous?

In short: I felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way.

Children - if you think back really what it was like to be a child and what it was like to know other children - children lie all the time

Even if it meant that she had failed, she was glad. And if what she'd wanted had been impossible from the start, still there was a certain lonely comfort in the fact that she'd known it was impossible and had gone ahead and done it anyway.