My heroes and heroines are often unlikely people who are dragged into situations without meaning to become involved, or people with a past that has never quite left them. They are often isolated, introspective people, often confrontational or anarchic in some way, often damaged or secretly unhappy or incomplete.

Drunkeness, she told us in a rare moment of confidence, is a sin against the fruit, the tree, the wine itself. Wine, distilled and nurtured from bud into fruit; it deserves reverance. Joy. Gentleness. (Page 194.)

You don't write because someone sets assignments! You write because you need to write, or because you hope someone will listen or because writing will mend something broken inside you or bring something back to life.

I sell dreams, small comforts, sweet harmless temptations to bring down a multitude of saints crashing among the hazels and nougatines

The process of giving is without limits.

If you want something you can have it, but you have to do some work. It's the ethic my mother brought me up with.

Was it my fault that I got out of hand? --Loki