Very suddenly. Yes, quite suddenly, I didn’t feel like I could handle my feeling of aloneness.
It is early, early morning. It’s that time when it’s still dark but you know the day is coming. Blue is bleeding through black. Stars are dying.
I read some books that were the right books for me. I read them and I didn’t even notice turning the pages anymore. I thought, “That’s what I want to do with my life.”
I had to decide what I was going to do, and what I was going to be. I was standing there, waiting for someone to do something, till I realised the person I was waiting for was myself.
So much good, so much evil. Just add water.
That was when the world wasn’t so big and I could see everywhere. It was when my father was a hero and not a human.
If you ever write a book, I can only give you one piece of advice. Don’t let your parents get involved.
He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.
How do you tell if something’s alive? You check for breathing.
A fighter can be a winner, but that doesn’t make a winner a fighter.
Together, they would watch everything that was so carefully planned collapse, and they would smile at the beauty of destruction.
I guess if editing doesn’t hurt, you’re probably not doing it properly. I find it quite difficult. The hardest part is believing that it’s actually working and getting rid of the doubt that always creeps in.
Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.
I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race – that rarely do I ever simply estimate it.
I like to tell students, ‘I didn’t burst on to the literary scene.’ I’m never good at things at the beginning. I was terrible at the start. I need to work and work.
I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.
She could smell the pages. She could almost taste the words as they stacked up around her.
No matter how many times she was told that she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment.
She wanted none of those days to end, and it was always with disappointment that she watched the darkness stride forward.
Maybe everyone can live beyond what they’re capable of.