Diane Awerbuck

"We all have those roads-in-the-yellow-wood dudes –the unready loves who left us, or we left. Sometimes, in the small, shuddery hours, they come back. I think about them; I’m glad I knew them. Life is long. If you’re lucky."

"Novels are the most terrifying of the forms, apart from screenplays (which are basically the haiku of the fiction world, and which is why the good ones are hardly ever written by just one person)."

"Writing is an aptitude. Sometimes you have more time and inclination for it, and sometimes you have children."

"We steal; we hoard; we like the sounds of our own voices."

"We all experience longing and magic, but we aren’t always good at knowing when they’re happening to us. Longing and magic don’t go away because we get older or more disappointed with our circumstances and selves."

"Middle-aged love is so devastating because this time round, you know exactly what’s at stake! Old-aged love is going to knock your thrombosis socks clean off!"

"The archaeology of aging is so interesting – what people think they are allowed to do; what they actually can do."

"Don’t do it. But also: if you want to, you will."