She was owner and captive, both, of a bitterly divided heart.

Ice is for death and endings.

I will not say I am sorry, but I can tell you that I grieve.

By things so achingly small are lives measured and marred.

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

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.

As many have noted, the peril for authors is that our work space is too easily our play space.