The baby explodes into an unknown world that is only knowable through some kind of a story – of course that is how we all live, it’s the narrative of our lives, but adoption drops you into the story after it has started. It’s like reading a book with the first few pages missing. It’s like arriving after curtain up. The feeling that something is missing never, ever leaves you – and it can’t, and it shouldn’t, because something is missing.

Books and doors are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world.

Sometimes you have to live in precarious and temporary places. Unsuitable places. Wrong places. Sometimes the safe place won't help you.

She hated being a nobody and like all children, adopted or not, I have had to live out some of her unlived life. We do that for our parents - we don't really have any choice.

Writers have to have a knack for listening. I need to be able to hear what is being said to me by the voices I create.

As your lover describes you, so you are.

The probability of separate worlds meeting is very small. The lure of it is immense. We send starships. We fall in love.