That's how fossil hunting is: It takes over, like a hunger, and nothing else matters but what you find. And even when you find it, you still start looking again the next minute, because there might be something even better waiting.

We say very little, for we do not need to. We are silent together, each in her own world, knowing the other is just at her back.

I had walked along that street all my life, but had never been so aware that my back was to my home

The sign of a masterpiece: A painting when there's a lack of resolution.

My father was often impatient during March, waiting for winter to end, the cold to ease, the sun to reappear. March was an unpredictable month, when it was never clear what might happen. Warm days raised hopes until ice and grey skies shut over the town again.

Normally book ideas come to me in a moment.

It's a rare book that wins the battle against drooping eyelids.