Writing is work, but it's also a compulsion, and once you get your characters on paper, you can't abandon them. You have to respond to them.

Things happen they way they're meant to. There's a pattern and a shape to everything...Nothing happens without a reason...Nothing is impossible...(Page 180).

Grief was like a terrible burden, but at least you could lay it down by the side of the road and walk away from it. Antonia had come only a few paces, but already she could turn and look back and not weep. It wasn't anything to do with forgetting. It was just accepting. Nothing was ever so bad once you had accepted it.

I wasn't good enough. I had a little talent but not enough. There is nothing more discouraging than having just a little talent.

Other people's houses were always fascinating. As soon as you went through the door for the first time, you got the feel of the atmosphere, and so discovered something about the personalities of the people who lived there.

She believed, of course ... because without something to believe in, life would be intolerable.

Happiness is making the most of what you have, and riches is making the most of what you've got.