“Tell me about Stackpole then...Like I am now, but smaller.”

“And in my head I laid out the stories the islanders told me... the flakes of silver, the seals who are wiser than humans, the girl who floated like a patchwork star.”

“No trains. No traffic noise. At night, my mother's old bedroom was so dark I couldn't tell if I'd shut my eyes or not.”

“I want him to see me as I saw him then. I want him to find me alone at the end of the day with the sun in my hair. I want his heart to buckle, too.”

“I hoarded all the stories that reflected the light and dazzled me.”

“Stories are thick with meanings. You can fall in love with a story for what you think it says, but you can't know for certain where it will lead your listeners. If you're telling a tale to teach children to be generous, they may fix instead on the part where your hero hides in an olive jar, then spend the whole next day fighting about who gets to try it first.People take what they need from the stories they hear. The tale is often wiser than the teller.”

“A man can be beautiful, I see that now. It's not just a woman's term, not a word reserved for romantic, virtuous, elegant things. I don't think beauty is neat any more. It's unordered. It's unbrushed hair and a torn back pocket. It's bright and strange and lovely, and if I were to paint him, I'd use all the warm colours - ochre, gold, plum, terracotta, scarlet, burnt orange.”