But there's a whole world waiting, still, and there are good things in it.

I often compare myself as a kid to my own grandchildren, who are around 11 and 14 now. That's the age kids usually read my book. And I remember myself, we'd gone through a world war. My father was an army officer so I was aware of what was going on. But I wasn't bombarded with images of catastrophe like many kids are today.

-a whole world can lie before someone, if love is there when one wakes.

The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past.

The mind can’t explain it, and you can’t make it go away. It’s called love.

I make up the characters in my books, but of course my consciousness is filled with every child I've ever known, including my two grandchildren, my own kids (I had four) and especially myself as a child, because that person still lives inside me, too.

Ellen had said that her mother was afraid of the ocean, that it was too cold and too big. The sky was, too, thought Annemarie. The whole world was: too cold, too big. And too cruel.