I was just about to begin writing Mirror Mirror, within about a week of it, when September 11, 2001 happened. I found myself incapable of caring about fiction-making for a number of months.

She is no longer I, she is too long ago, she is only she.

...What is the use of beauty? i have lived my life surrounded by painters, and still I do not know the answer. But i suspect, some days, that beauty helps protect the spirit of mankind, swaddle it and succor it, so that we might survive. Beauty is no end in itself, but if it makes or lives less miserable so that we might be more kind-well, then, lets have beauty, painted on our porcelain, hanging on our walls, ringing through our stories.

When the times are a crucible, when the air is full of crisis, those who are the most themselves are the victims.

I shall pray for your soul,' promised Nessarose. I shall wait for your shoes,' Elphie answered.

The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say.

... the decades looked on and didn't notice her passing. They stared from their fixed mounts across at each other and didn't see revolution striding between them, on her way to destiny.