Sylvia loved secrets and even if she didn't have any secrets she made sure that you thought she did. Amelia had no secrets, Amelia knew nothing. When she grew up she planned to know everything and to keep it all a secret.

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.

The great thing about writing compared to life is getting to tie things up.

Become such as you are, having learned what that is.

Ethics are not necessarily to do with being law-abiding. I am very interested in the moral path, doing the right thing.

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

Because I write fiction, I don't write autobiography, and to me they are very different things. The first-person narrative is a very intimate thing, but you are not addressing other people as 'I' - you are inhabiting that 'I.'