The heavenly light you admire is fossil-light, it's the unfathomably distant past you gaze into, stars long extinct

As a child. I grew up on a small farm, so I did a lot of drawings of animals, chickens and people. At the bottom of every page, I'd put a strange scribble. I was emulating adult handwriting, though I didn't actually know how to write.

Death is just the last scene of the last act.

I did not consider that I would lead a literary life. I'd thought initially, as a young girl, that I would be a teacher, since I so admired many of my teachers. And though I loved writing, I did not ever think of myself as a writer.

See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be

Writing is the most solitary of arts.

the music was always in the background, like music at a church service; it was something to depend upon.