It wasn't right. He knew that, but it was like falling: once you started you couldn't stop until something stopped you.

He wished he had some kind of X-ray vision for the human heart.

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.

I love to swim, and I love being near water.

The Lake of Dreams grew gradually, over many years, elements and ideas accruing until they gained enough critical mass to become a novel.

He could hardly imagine anymore what his life would be without the weight of his hidden knowledge. He'd come to think of it as a kind of penance. It was self-destructive, he could see that, but that was the way things were. People smoked, they jumped out of airplanes, they drank too much and got into their cars and drove without seat belts.

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.