Hope and reality lie in inverse proportions, inside the walls of a hospital... Doubt is like dye. Once is spreads into the fabric of excuses you've woven, you'll never get rid of the stain.

I think...she said finally, "that all of us have got our ghosts.

Many of my books come from what if questions that I can't answer, things that I'm worried about as either a woman, a wife, a mom, an American.

The right idea is the one you can't stop thinking about; the one that's in your head first thing in the morning.

and another claimed it was inherited through a parent who was a carrier of the defective gene. I had always assumed the latter was the case with Claire. After all, surely a child who grew out of grief would be born with a heavy heart.

The only monsters I have ever known were men.

You can touch everything and be connected to nothing.