Either things grow and change or they die.

She had died at age twelve, and by now she was nothing but the memory of love-- nothing, now, but bones.

Its impossible to control the reception of your work - the only thing you can control is the experience of writing itself, and the work you create.

I've been accused of trying too hard to rescue people

So something had begun, and now she could not stop it. Twin threads ran through her: fear and excitement. She could leave this place today. She could start a new life somewhere else.

After Memory Keepers Daughter, it took me a few months to shut out the world. I really had to turn off the Internet and sort of cloister myself away from the world again and sink into that psychic space to write again.

This was her life. Not the life she had once dreamed of, not a life her younger self would ever have imagined or desired, but the life she was living, with all its complexities. This was her life, built with care and attention, and it was good.