But nothing is solid and permanent. Our lives are raised on the shakiest foundations. You don't need to read history books to know that. You only have to know the history of your own life.

I think that's what I love about writing, is the ability to try to, in a sense, take a vacation from yourself and try to enter the sensibility of another time, another character, another place.

We had some good times at school. I didn't know how good those times were until I left, but I guess that's the way of it

A place where something so terrible had happened shouldn't continue to exist in the world

I don't even have a choice. Rachel thought how that was pretty much true of everything now, that you got one choice at the beginning but if you didn't choose right, and she hadn't, things got narrow real quick. Like trying to wade a river, she thought. You take a wrong step and set your foot on a wobbly rock or in a drop-off and you're swept away, and all you can do then is try to survive.

Furthermore, even if ideas were gettable - say, stacked in a secluded cave like the Dead Sea scrolls - I wouldn't go there. An 'idea,' especially one adhered to from start to finish, can be disastrous for a compelling piece of fiction.

She realized that being starved for words was the same as being starved for food, because both left a hollow place inside you, a place you needed filled to make it through another day. Rachel remembered how growing up she’d thought living on a farm with just a father was as lonely as you could be. (130)