You can never do enough for the dead. You search around for comfort but there is no comfort; there never was and never will be. There is only a gradual wearing away of the sharp edges, so that you don't feel ambushed at every turn, as if you saw the dead suddenly rounding the corner.

Silence is a way of saying: we do not have to entertain each other; we are okay as we are.

writers just kept on staring at nothing until they wrote something. Might be two minutes or two weeks.

Before you hate something you should try to understand it.

We don't know who we are until we see what we can do.

Writing is an antisocial act.

Intricately plotted, beautifully paced, The Music of the Spheres is an elegant historical novel rich in detail, at times Dickensian in its description of London. Elizabeth Redfern has made an exciting debut.