The greatest gift a parent can leave a child is that parent's own independence.

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

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).

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.

The greatest gift a parent can leave a child is that parent's own independence.

She thought of the last couple of years: the boredom, the narrowness of existence, the dearth of anything to look forward to. Yet now, in a single instant, the curtains had been whipped aside, and the windows been thrown open onto a brillant view that had been there, waiting for her, all the time. A view, moreover, laden with the most marvellous possibilities and opportunities.

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.