This was a little house, with a ceiling that kept getting higher and higher, a hot place with no windows. This was anger.

I wish there was someone I could have written to after that, someone I could have written to explain how awful it was to have someone touch you, then look at you properly and change his mind.

Home is where your teapots are.

I collected pictures and I drew pictures and I looked at the pictures by myself. And because no one else ever saw them, the pictures were perfect and true. They were alive.

The first coffee of the morning is never, ever, ready quickly enough. You die before it’s ready and then your ghost pours the resurrection potion out of the moka pot.

I feel like an old lady; my hero is Miss Marple.

Because things grow. Wherever there is air and light and open space, things grow.

There were days when he touched the tip of her nose and it was enough, a miracle of plenty.

The language of [Catholic] mysticism - its repeated attempts to lay consciousness itself bare and speak all the intensely opposing yet interconnected parts of it that cannot be spoken.

I think, basically, what I'm good for is reading - a lot.

I dont have a style. I just try to write what the story demands.

Faith doesn't move mountains, but people with faith - and shovels - will move mountains in order to defend their faith.

I play with my grandchildren. I tend to my garden, which I love. Of course, I love to read, and family is really what it's all about.

We transform the world, but we don't remember it. We adjust our baseline to the new level, and we don't recall what was there.

All I have to be thankful for in this world is that I was sitting down when my garter busted.

We voluntary participate in things that we know are causing us harm because we believe we're powerless to do anything about it.

Authors in general don’t have a lot of money, and lawsuits are expensive.

I'm sure there isn't an after-life. If there were, Ivor Novello would have got a message to us.

Challenges are opportunities for me to grow. The more I learn, the more equipped I am to handle whatever situations come up.

To truly live a creative life means that you will need to experiment in as many different fields as possible.

I don't really need new stuff anyway. I like to make big stuff, and it's too expensive to travel with. So I have my refined set that works well, and I'm pretty much set with that.