I was on the verge of something numinous and profound and in one more second the universe was going to crack open and arcana would rain down on my head like grace and all the cosmic mysteries were going to be revealed.

Not being published would be great. When I say that to other writers they look at me as if I'm totally insane.

Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness, a conundrum that she couldn’t even begin to solve.

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?

Patricia embraces me on the station platform. 'The past is what you leave behind in life, Ruby,' she says with the smile of a reincarnated lama. 'Nonsense, Patricia,' I tell her as I climb on board my train. 'The past's what you take with you.

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

Life wasn't about becoming, was it? It was about being.