When it is my editor telling me how to rewrite a story, I listen and do what she asks because I have learned that I get a better book in the end. I can't say I'm happy when I read that editorial letter. It is always a little painful and scary. But I have learned that - bit by bit - I can make the changes and do the work.

How will the world change if we do not question it?

Longing is not always a reciprocal thing.

Say it, reader. Say the word 'quest' out loud. It is an extraordinary word, isn't it? So small and yet so full of wonder, so full of hope.

I thought I was going nowhere. Now I can see there was a pattern.

... every time you look at the world and the people in it closely, lovingly, imaginatively, it changes you. The world, under the microscope of your attention, opens up like a beautiful, strange flower and gives itself back to you in ways you could never imagine.

Things are not at all what they seem to be: oh no, not at all.