Teachers are by nature idealists, and they believe anything can be learned.

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

Death is harder on those who are left behind.

Don't allow your imagination to colour events as lesser men would, and see movement in motionless things.

That sense of failure, I don't know where people put it who don't write songs and aren't able to emote physically. It must go somewhere.

Politics are about power; we cannot evade that truth or its consequences. We dream of a better world but it is in Utopia - that is, nowhere.

I don't normally watch myself on the telly.

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars.

His eyes were rolling in their sockets, and his face had taken on the colour and expression of a devout tomato. I could see he loved like a thousand bricks.

There is no tears without joy; there is no joy without tears.

Truth hates delay. (Veritas odit moras.)

Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.