Grief, it seemed, was a physical place.

You can't spend the rest of your life tiptoeing around to try and avert disaster. It won't work. You'll just end up missing the life you have.

Music is like you touch the pulse of the world. Music is always happening, and sometimes you get to touch it for a while, and when you do you know that everything's connetcted to everything else.

She saw herself moving through another life, an exotic, difficult, satisfying life.

Writing is always a process of discovery—I never know the end, or even the events on the next page, until they happen. There’s a constant interplay between the imagining and shaping of the story.

It's funny how things seem different, suddenly.

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