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Grace McCleen

Grace McCleen was born in Wales and grew up in a fundamentalist religion where she did not have much contact with non-believers. Her family moved to Ireland when she was ten, where she was schooled at home. When Grace and her family moved back to Britain she went back to school and her English teacher suggested she apply to Oxford.

She studied English Literature at Oxford University and The University of York before becoming a full-time writer and musician. She lives in London. The Land of Decoration is her first novel.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/gracem...


“Something and Nothing are more closely related than people think, God said.”
Grace McCleen
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“If I had to say how I felt, I would say like a box that had been turned upside down. And the box was surprised by just how empty it was.”
Grace McCleen
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“... there won't be any unbelievers or any war or any famine or any suffering. There won't be any pollution or any towns either. There will be fields, and those who have died will come back to life and those who are living will never die at all and there will be no more sickness, because God will wipe out every tear from our eyes. We know this because God has promised.”
Grace McCleen
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“I wondered what it would be like to die. Was it like going to sleep or like waking up? Was there no more time? Or did time go on forever?”
Grace McCleen
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“Once there was a man and a woman. When they met sparks flew, meteors collided, asteroids turned cartwheels and atoms split. He loved her from here to eternity, she loved him to the moon and back. They were two peas in a pod, heads and tails and noughts and crosses.”
Grace McCleen
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“Miracles don't have to be big, and they can happen in the unlikeliest places. Sometimes they are so small people don't notice. Sometimes miracles are shy. They brush against your sleeve, they settle on your eyelashes. They wait for you to notice, then melt away. Lots of things start by being small. It's a good way to begin, because no one takes any notice of you. You're just a little thing beetling along, minding your own business. Then you grow.”
Grace McCleen
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