Thornyhold

You get no writing done at all if you sit at a table with a view. You'd spent the whole time watching the birds or thinking about what you would like to be doing out of doors, instead of flogging yourself to work out of sheer boredom.

I suppose my mother could have been a witch if she had chosen to. But she met my father, who was a rather saintly clergyman, and he cancelled her out.

I had always been content to know that there was more in the living world than we could hope to understand.

Literature and fiction are full of femmes fatales, but there is also an homme fatal, an altogether rarer bird, and pity help the lonely and impressionable female who comes within range of him.

William's mother, dead these six years. He spoke of her with love, but without grief. Six years, and whatever the loss, happiness steals back.

I assure you, I've come to one of those natural breaks in the book, where one can walk away and let things go on working in the subconscious. It's true, don't look so unbelieving. It means I can afford to tear myself away from my view of the pigsties and go out on parole, as much as I like and you'll put up with.