Then I thought, boy, isn't that just typical? You wait and wait and wait for something, and then when it happens, you feel sad.

I wondered about Mrs. Winterbottom and what she meant about living a tiny life. If she didn't like all that baking and cleaning and jumping up to get bottles of nail polish remover and sewing hems, why did she do it? Why didn't she tell them to do some of the things themselves? Maybe she was afraid there would be nothing left for her to do. There would be no need for her and she would become invisible and no one would notice.

Sometimes when you are trying not to think about something it keeps popping back in your head you can't help it you think about it and think about it and think about it until your brain feels like a squashed pea.

In many of my books, I explore the ways in which grandparents or other older persons are shaped by the young, and the young are shaped by the old, in an evolving dance.

And what did I think when I was small and why did I forget? And what else will I forget when I grow older? And if you forget is it as if it never happened? Will none of the things you saw or thought or dreamed matter?

It seems to me that we can’t explain all the truly awful things in the world like war and murder and brain tumors, and we can’t fix these things, so we look at the frightening things that are closer to us and we magnify them until they burst open. Inside is something that we can manage, something that isn’t as awful as it had a first seemed. It is a relief to discover that although there might be axe murderers and kidnappers in the world, most people seem a lot like us: sometimes afraid and sometimes brave, sometimes cruel and sometimes kind.

I am drawn to the ways in which we are shaped by people and by place.