As I watch, the sky fills with clouds of snow feathers from every kind of bird there ever was and even some that only exist in the imagination, like the bluebirds that fly over the rainbow.

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

Julia's vocabulary was "chock-full" of strangely archaic words - "spiffing," "crumbs," "jeepers" - that seemed to have originated in some prewar girls' annual rather than in Julia's own life. For Jackson, words were functional, they helped you get to places and explain things. For Julia, they were freighted with inexplicable emotion.

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.

Probably not needing to be published would give me more time to think about a book.

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

It's been said that the men in my books have been absent, or weak, or creepy.