Real life doesn't have to be convincing, but fiction does.

A flash of resentment. It's hard enough being alive, trying to survive in the world and find your place in it, to do the things you need to do to get by, without wondering if the thing you just did, whatever it was, was worth someone having...if not died, then having given up her life. It wasn't fair. "Life's not fair," said Ginnie, as if I had spoken aloud.

All writers have this vague hope that the elves will come in the night and finish any stories.

Dreams are hopes, and echoes of hope.

Have been unavoidably detained by the world. Expect us when you see us.

It always felt like the price of being a writer was that you would - even in the most terrible moments, there was a little phantom version of you sitting on your shoulder with a notebook going, I can use this. OK, look at the way that the light is glinting off the broken plastic on the road next to the blood. You can use this. And it was always a very strange feeling.

We have an obligation to make things beautiful. Not to leave the world uglier than we found it, not to empty the oceans, not to leave our problems for the next generation.