You'll beat this. I know it doesn't feel like it, but you will. You're a survivor." "I don't want to survive it." "I know that, too," Nell had said. "And it's fair enough. But sometimes we don't have a choice.

That, my dear, is what makes a character interesting, their secrets.

The prospect of an early death sits differently upon each person. In some it gifts maturity far outweighing their age and experience: calm acceptance blossoms into a beautiful nature and soft countenance. In others, however, it leads to the formation of a tiny ice flint in their heart. Ice that, though at times concealed, never properly melts. Rose, though she would have liked to be one of the former, knew herself deep down to be one of the latter.

Had any poet adequately described the wretched ugliness of a loved one turned inside out with grief?

She was the sort of person for whom fear was the natural response to that beyond explanation.

People might think writing is a hard business, but it's nowhere near acting.

I've heard it said that children born to stressful times never shake the air of woe . . . .