“... the story of my marriage, which is the great joy and astonishment of my life, is too much like a fairy tale, the German kind, unsweetened by Disney.”

“Hope is a horrible thing, you know. It's a plague. It's like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and someone just keep pulling it and pulling it."STATE OF WONDER”

“I missed my mother's father. Is that even possible? Maybe I had fallen asleep for a while. Maybe I was like her, just waking up and looking for him to be there. I wondered how it would have changed...”

“Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.”

“The more we are willing to separate from distraction and step into the open arms of boredom, the more writing will get on the page.”

“It turns out that the distance from head to hand, from wafting butterfly to entomological specimen, is achieved through regular, disciplined practice. What begins as something like a dream will in ...”

“Carmen will always be free.”

“There was no time for kissing but she wanted him to know that in the future there would be. A kiss in so much loneliness was like a hand pulling you up out of the water, scooping you up from a plac...”

“Carmen will always be free.”

“At what point do you give up - decide enough is enough? There is only one answer really. Never.”

“He had a sadness in his eyes that Carrie recognised as regret.”

“Vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful.”

“Id ask you to be careful tomorrow, if I thought youd listen to me, I said to him.He looked sympathetic but annoyed. Mum, Im not a baby anymore. Then sensing that I was on the verge of crying, he hu...”

“I’d ask you to be careful tomorrow, if I thought you’d listen to me,’ I said to him.He looked sympathetic but annoyed. ‘Mum, I’m not a baby anymore.’ Then sensing that I was on the verge of crying,...”