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.

He fished in his pocket for his keys and instead pulled out the last geode, gray and smooth, earth-shaped. He held it, warming in his palm, thinking of all mysteries the world contained: layers of stone, concealed beneath the flesh of earth and grass; these dull rocks, with their glimmering hidden hearts.

Photography is all about secrets... The secrets we all have and will never tell.

Lately, the world felt fragile, like a blown egg, as if it might shatter beneath a careless touch.

In some deep place in her heart, Caroline had kept alive the silly romantic notion that somehow David Henry had once known her as no one else ever could. But it was not true. He had never even glimpsed her.

You missed a lot of heartache, sure. But David, you missed a lot of joy.

Each letter has a shape, she told them, one shape in the world and no other, and it is your responsibility to make it perfect.