In the presence of love, hearth and quest become one.

When I fell in love it was as though I looked into a mirror for the first time and saw myself.

Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid.

There is no discovery without risk and what you risk reveals what you value.

Always in my books, I like to throw that rogue element into a stable situation and then see what happens.

Language is a finding place, not a hiding place.

I learned capacity for self-reflection very early, finding it through interior monologues that books are so good at and that visual media is so bad at because it's so boring - nothing's happening. In a book, you can be inside the narrator's head for 50 pages, and nothing needs to happen. Then you learn to be inside your own head without something needing to happen. It's a very good antidote to a crazy, restless, "what's next?" culture - that you can just be in your own head and nothing is happening except that this is a rich place. I love that.