“I'm taken over by this trunk. I'm practically living inside it. When I read the journals I feel as if I'm there, a hundred years ago. I'm putting together the whole picture and I know everything that happened and wasn't written down - Amal, p. 133”

“When I'm drawing a picture, I feel...quiet inside.”

“...I don't have to smile and pretend I'm fine even though inside I feel like I'm breaking into a thousand tiny fragments too small ever to be put together again.”

“I'm putting up a great front, then because I feel like I'm breaking apart inside.”

“The hours go by without my knowing it. Sitting there I'm wandering in countries I can see every detail of--I'm playing a role in the story I'm reading. I actually feel I'm the characters--I live and breathe them.”

“If I'm reading something I happen to know and gets it wrong, I just don't trust the book any more. What I ask of a novel I'm reading is that it should know a fraction more about the things I know than I do. When I'm writing...I ask myself: would I be convinced by this if I read it? If I knocked against this bit of scenery, would it feel solid?”