Whatever happens to you, embrace it, the good and the bad equally. Death is just one more thing to be embraced.

The past is a cupboard full of light and all you have to do is find the key that opens the door.

Sylvie's knowledge, like Izzie's, was random yet far-ranging, 'The sign that one has acquired one's learning from reading novels rather than an education.

Why is everything an 'adventure' with you?" Sylvie said irritably to Izzie." "Because life is an adventure, of course." "I would say it was more of an endurance race," Sylvie said. "Or an obstacle course.

I have been to the world's end and back and now I know what I would put in my bottom drawer .I would put my sisters.

Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance.

Everyone said, 'Well, you're very old for a first novel,' and I said, 'How do you write when you haven't lived? How do you write when you have no experience? How do you write straight out of university?