“Maybe that’s why humans find it so hard getting over love affairs. It’s not the pain they’re getting over, it’s the love”

“It's funny how you can forget everything except people loving you. Maybe that's why humans find it so hard getting over love affairs. It's not the pain they're getting over, it's the love.”

“I remember love. It's what I have to keep on reminding myself. It's funny how you can forget everything except people loving you. Maybe that's why humans find it so hard getting over love affairs. It's not the pain they're getting over, it's the love.”

“It’s all a bit of a gamble, mate. That’s all I can promise you.And we never get to see what that other life would have looked like if we don’t take chances.”

“I look over to the other side of the road and watch Griggs as he walks. It’s a lazy walk but so full of confidence that you want to be standing behind him all the way.”

“Despite the voice in his head that says he doesn’t want anything that’s owed to his father, Tom can’t wait to get his hands on it.“Just take it. Hit your old man over the head with it. You’re dying to.”

“There’s a moment in [Anne of Green Gables] where Anne Shirley (great character) […] is in the same classroom as Gilbert Blythe and she hit’s him over the head with a slate, which is their kind of writing tool, and I always say that moment for me was just, I was just absolutely mesmerised. I thought it was so romantic, though she hated his guts. I would always say that in every one of my novels there is a moment where my characters metaphorically hit their potential love interests over the head with a slate. It could be that winning an argument or getting the upper hand, an example in say The Piper’s Son could be here’s Tom thinking it will be easy, text messaging Tara saying ‘How’s it going, babe’ and her response, that for me is the hitting someone over the head with a slate. It happens in Saving Francesca when she kind of meets Will and Will’s such a bastard to her. So they’re moments I kind of adopted and I loved that particular one, so I would say [L.M. Montgomery] was a major influence.”