There was no light. The darkness was deep and there was no dazzle.

She began to feel the sense of wonderful elation that always came to her when beauty took hold of her and made her forget her fears.

I do not believe that true optimism can come about except through tragedy.

A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.

Inspiration does not always precede the act of writing; it often follows it.

My writing knows more than I know. What a writer must do is listen to her book. It might take you where you don’t expect to go. That’s what happens when you write stories. You listen and you say ‘a ha,’ and you write it down. A lot of it is not planned, not conscious; it happens while you’re doing it. You know more about it after you’re done.

It is ... through the world of the imagination which takes us beyond the restrictions of provable fact, that we touch the hem of truth.