I love my life, my family and my friends, and I'm drawn to 'relationship' novels because of their affirming focus on the power of love to heal wounds and transform lives.

She watched the gap between ship and shore grow to a huge gulf. Perhaps this was a little like dying, the departed no longer visible to the others, yet both still existed, only in different worlds.

There is something about losing your mother that is permanent and inexpressable - a wound that will never quite heal.

Unexpected change is like a breath of fresh air -- a little brisk at first, but magic for the body and soul.

Tell the story that's in your heart, and don't hold back. Write a book the reader will want to melt into.

An event in the present evokes past sensations. But science couldn't explain how a foolish heart had the power to overrule common sense.

Insults sting but a little when they stem from a man's ignorance.

You're never alone when you're reading a book.

Fear and love were sometimes the same thing both necessary unavoidable. Now she understood that it was okay to bleed if you know how to heal.

Talent is required, but much of writing is a matter of craft, which develops with time, attention, patience and practice, like playing an instrument or learning to dance.

At the centre of every fairy tale lay a truth that gave the story its power

The destruction of this universe would have no significance on a cosmic scale.

There's a part of all of us whose impulse is to say, "Let's keep everything the same until I die and then you can do whatever you want afterward." And that's a difficult part.

No, Mom. I said fine." "It's just your tone." Ah, yes- the tone. The nasty traitor.

The press is dishonest, but the political press is especially dishonest.

Nay if even in the house of Hades the dead forget their dead, yet will I even there be mindful of my dear comrade.

Unlike many other Celts, I cannot claim that Celtic was my first love but I can say that it will be my last love.

The type of religion which rejoices in the pious sound of traditional phrases, regardless of their meanings, or shrinks from "controversial" matters, will never stand amid the shocks of life.

Religions are not for separating men from one another, they are meant to bind them.

I've always written very tightly, and there's a good reason for that. There's no point in using words that you're not going to apply.

Conclusive facts are inseparable from inconclusive except by a head that already understands and knows.