He slouched back in his seat, looking tired, and leaned his face on his shoulder to look at me while he played with my hair. He started to hum a song, and then, after a few bars, he sang it. Quietly, sort of half-sung, half-spoken, incredibly gentle. I didn’t catch all the words, but it was about his summer girl. Me. Maybe his forever girl. His yellow eyes were half-lidded as he sang, and in that golden moment, hanging taut in the middle of an icecovered landscape like a single bubble of summer nectar, I could see how my life could be stretched out in front of me.

My good mood felt like an endangered species.

The biggest mistake you can make is assuming that creativity will hit you all at once and the muse will carry you to the end of the book on feather wings while Foster the People plays gently in the background. Storytelling is work. Pleasurable work, usually, but it is work.

People don't change who they are. They only change what they do with it.

What were you thinking about? When I came in?" "Being Sam," I said. "What a nice thing to be," Grace said. And then she smiled, bigger and bigger, until I felt my expression mirror hers, our noses touching.

How do you feel about helicopters?" There was a long pause. "How do you mean? Ethically?" "As a mode of transportation." "Faster than camels, but less sustainable.

Mum liked to say that some things happen for a reason, that sometimes obstacles were there to stop you from doing something stupid.