But there are some wounds that can never be healed.

Now, I - for several years while I was researching this book, I felt quite obsessed by thoughts about sentencing, punishment, how judges arrive at their decisions.

It's a terrific privilege to be able to see into somebody else's life.

The only thing that I was equipped for with my very mediocre college Arts degree was to get a job in teaching.

It's disturbing at my age to look at a young woman's destructive behaviour and hear the echoes of it, of one's own destructiveness in youth.

But there are some wounds that can never be healed.

I like poking my nose into other people's lives.