“Pieces and parts were always easier to process. The full picture, the entire story, was another thing entirely. But you just never knew. Sometimes, people could surprise you.”

“Stories. Character. Dialouge. Entire worlds created on the page. Worlds that could sweep you away or frighten you, make you laugh or cry. Worlds that allowed you to escape to another country or time. Worlds built piece by piece of ink and punctuation.”

“It wasn't just that he didn't see the big picture, sometimes he saw a different picture entirely.”

“Every story is part of a whole, entire life, you know? Happy and sad and tragic and whatever, but an entire life. And books let you know them.”

“In a very real way, one writes a story to find out what happens in it. Before it is written it sits in the mind like a piece of overheard gossip or a bit of intriguing tattle. The story process is like taking up such a piece of gossip, hunting down the people actually involved, questioning them, finding out what really occurred, and visiting pertinent locations. As with gossip, you can't be too surprised if important things turn up that were left out of the first-heard version entirely; or if points initially made much of turn out to have been distorted, or simply not to have happened at all.”

“Kittredge had obviously misjudged her, but he had learned that was the way with most people. The story was never the story, and it surprised you, how much another person could carry.”