“But I always liked side-paths, little dark back-alleys behind the main road- there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt.”

“No one would ever find her here. Even from the high saddle there was no sign of the way she'd come, no path, no road, only the bent backs of the hills repeating themselves, over and over, on one side of the road all the way to the western mountains, on the other to the sea.”

“For the risk of it, for the sheer surprise of pressing one's nose to the glass and finding someone staring back on the other side.”

“The ones who fight each other because of their own beliefs are like specks of dirt fighting each other about the nature of their world, refusing to see that they are all in the same mud puddle on the side of the road.”

“I remember hearing myself start to whimper, a five-year-old, crouched by the side of the road, staring into my father's eyes, whimpering because it was so dark and there was no one coming to help, whimpering because my mother was back in the crushed car, not moving, and my father was lying here in the dirt, not answering me, not holding me, not comforting me, not helping my mother get out of the car, and there was blood, so much blood, and broken glass everywhere, and it was so dark and so cold and no one was coming to help.”

“An author is like a jeweller, with words as their gemstones and imagination the precious metals.”