Dave hung up. And unplugged the phone. With a fierce and bitter pain he stared at it, watching how, over and over again, it didn't ring.

It is always difficult, even with the best will in the world, to look back a long way and see anything resembling the truth.

... everyone knew that all islands were worlds unto themselves, that to come to an island was to come to another world.

It can be hard to write a skillfully entertaining fiction, but a great book wants to be more, and wants more from us.

A hard truth: that courage can be without meaning or impact, need not be rewarded, or even known. The world has not been made in that way. Perhaps, however, within the self there might come a resonance, the awareness of having done something difficult, of having done . . . something.

Do you know the wish of your heart?" - The Darkest Road

My youngest brother had a wonderful schtick from some time in high school, through to graduating medicine. He had a card in his wallet that read, ‘If I am found with amnesia, please give me the following books to read …’ And it listed half a dozen books where he longed to recapture that first glorious sense of needing to find out ‘what happens next’ … the feeling that keeps you up half the night. The feeling that comes before the plot’s been learned.