Somehow, knowing that Alzheimer's is coming mocks all one's aspirations - to tell stories, to think through certain issues as only a novel can do, to be recognised for one's accomplishments and hard work - in a way that old familiar death does not.

If novels and stories are bulletins from the progressive states of ignorance a writer passes through over the years, observations and opinions about horses are all the more so, since horses are more mysterious than life and harder to understand.

The essence of charity ... was not deciding what others needed and giving it to them, but giving them what they wanted.

Fascination with horses predated every other single thing I knew. Before I was a mother, before I was a writer, before I knew the facts of life, before I was a schoolgirl, before I learned to read, I wanted a horse.

Candy is my fuel. Ice cream, too.

Ignorance is a self-generating state of mind; one of its characteristics is that it doesn't recognize itself as ignorance.

The main thing about the novel that is totally fascinating: It's not possessed by the writer; it's possessed by the reader.