And now she was back in the world, not one she could make, but the one that had made her, and she felt herself shrinking under the early evening sky. She was weary of being outdoors, but she was not ready to go in. Was that really all there was in life, indoors or out? Wasn't there somewhere else for people to go?

It troubles him to consider the powerful currents and fine-tuning that alter fate, the close and distant influences, the accidents of character and circumstance.

But what really happened? The answer is simple: the lovers survive and flourish.

I think the novel, its business is the investigation of human nature.

Nothing that can be, can come between me and the full prospect of my hopes.

There was, in my view, an unwritten contract with the reader that the writer must honour. No single element of an imagined world or any of its characters should be allowed to dissolve on an authorial whim. The invented had to be as solid and as self-consistent as the actual. This was a contract founded on mutual trust.

I've never had a moment's doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life.