She says there are stories everywhere and that people who wait for the right one to come along before setting pen to paper end up with very empty pages.

It's a funny thing, character, the way it brands people as they age, rising from within to leave its scar.

No two people will ever see or feel things in the same way, Merry. The challenge is to be truthful when you write. Don't approximate. Don't settle for the easiest combination of words. Go searching instead for those that explain exactly what you think. What you feel.

when you love someone you’ll do just about anything to keep them.

A girl expecting rescue never learns to save herself. Even with the means, she will find her courage wanting.

She either confused me with a much older child or else she glimpsed deep inside my soul and perceived a hole that needed filling. I've always chosen to believe the latter. After all, it's the librarian's one sworn purpose to bring books together with their one true reader.

In real life turning points are sneaky. They pass by unlabeled and unheeded. Opportunities are missed, catastrophes unwittingly celebrated. Turning points are only uncovered later, by historians who seek to bring order to a lifetime of tangled moments.