If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister, even when the other half of the equation is gone?

The wolves knew when it was time to stop looking for what they'd lost, to focus instead on what was yet to come.

I'm grateful for my children, who are slowly emerging to become their own wonderful, interesting, compassionate young adults - which makes me believe that along the way I must have done something right.

Maybe if you spend your life pretending you're on a movie set, you don't ever have to admit that the walls are made out of paper and the food is plastic and the words in your mouth aren't really yours.

When we're awake, we see what we need to see. When we're asleep, we see what is really there.

I told myself that if I didn't care, this wouldn't have hurt so much - surely that proved I was alive and human and all those touchy-feely things, for once and for all. But that wasn't a relief, not when I felt like a skyscraper with dynamite on every floor.

I've been an idiot to think that real life could have a happy ending