When writing a novel, I'm not smart enough to know how to foreshadow something if I don't know what it is.

She felt detached from her family, and thought it strange how they had lavished so much attention on her, as a child, and then at some appointed, prearranged time they seemed to stop the flow of affection and being the expectations - as if, for a brief phrase, you were expected to absorb love (and get enough), and then, for a much longer and more serious phase, you were expected to fulfill certain obligations.

People only ask questions when they're ready to hear the answers.

The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life led by human beings; the second was that human beings could survive a life in hotels.

Sell my old clothes - I'm off to heaven

It's because even a good man can't always be right, that we need ... rules.

A sentence boiled in her, but she could not yet see it clearly.