I'm getting too elderly to travel the length of the country for a free hangover.

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.

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

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.

I'm getting too elderly to travel the length of the country for a free hangover.

She put out her hand and touched his forearm, as she would have touched some piece of porcelain or sculpture, just for the sheer animal pleasure of feeling its shape and curve beneath her fingertips.