You shouldn't do that," said Laura. "You could set yourself on fire.

I have long since decided if you wait for the perfect time to write, you'll never write. There is no time that isn't flawed somehow.

I'll make you mine, lovers said in old books. They never said, I'll make you me.

It had helped to keep her sane, that writing. Then, when time had begun again and real people had entered it, she'd abandoned it here. Now it's a whisper from the past. Is that what writing amounts to? The voice your ghost would have, if it had a voice?

I was born in the Ottawa General Hospital right after the Gray Cup Football Game in 1939. Six months later, I was backpacked into the Quebec bush. I grew up in and out of the bush, in and out of Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie and Toronto.

I was sand, I was snow—written on, rewritten, smoothed over.

The facts of this world seen clearly are seen through tears.