That's one of the great sadnesses of any life - knowing what you know now and then remembering what you did not know then.

We are expanded by tears, we are told, not reduced by them.

But we were interested in how our lives could mean something to the past. We sailed into the past.

What night gave Rafael was a formlessness in which everything had a purpose. As if darkness had a hidden musical language.

Love is so small it can tear itself through the eye of a needle

She is a woman of honour and smartness whose wild leaves out luck, always taking risks, and there is something in her brow now, that only she can recognize in a mirror. Ideal and idealistic in that shiny dark hair! People fall in love with her. She is a woman I don’t know well enough to hold in my wing, if writers have wings, to harbour for the rest of my life.

I think precision in writing goes hand in hand with not trying to say everything. You try and say two-thirds, so the reader will involve himself or herself.