Jaclyn Moriarty

When she got back from taking Cassie to school Fancy knew that she ought to be working on her wilderness romance. She had promised thirty thousand words to her editor by tomorrow, and she had only written eleven. Specific

Distance is the journey. Displacement is the result.

There was something in the moonlight tonight. It was stroking the stonework and spires, leaning into cracks between the cobblestones, caressing the stained-glass windows. She felt her heart lift with magic.

Well, this might sound stupid but I think he was my best friend. Like the other half of me. I'm so scared something might have happened to him when he went back. I miss him so much sometimes I look at windows and I want to just walk right through them -- like press myself through the glass. I want their sharp edges to fragment me.

How about we meet at midnight tomorrow and try this. I close my eyes, believe in you, and there you'll be.

It's a lot easier to be crazy or mad than to just get on with living.

The Irish people didn't get on that well with each other either. They hated the Catholics, was the main issue, as I see. You can't blame them for that. If I understand correctly, Catholics do not believe in contraception. So, you know, sex is not relaxing.

Do you think there could be a universe next door?

I love her bare legs from a distance. When she's standing by a pool. When she's facing the water, thinking. Her legs are white as watermelon rind, veined blue from cold. There's that 'H' shape behind her knees. The H trembles softly with the swimming-water cold.

Well, first you have to be very, very funny. I have realized that it is essential for a boy to be funny. Otherwise, what is the point in a boy?

You__e loved with intensity and passion, and have learned to hide your heartache, learned to press your handkerchief back into your pocket and pretend that you are okay.

Who knows if all our brains are inventing the same thing? I mean, how do we know that the thing YOUR eyes see and call "red" is the same thing that I call "red"?

Having read several prize-winning novels, Fancy was confident that she now knew the recipe: 1. Write a simple narrative. 2. Make a long list. 3. Scatter the contents of your list throughout your narrative.

This is what I want you all to do. I want you to open a new document and type up a list of three problems in your life. Not the universe's life - your own. Underneath, type the solutions.""If we know the solutions," said Belle, "they're not problems.""Exactly," said Denny. "You do know the answers to most of your problems. Somewhere deep inside, you know.

The world is made of more than particles. It's made of things you can't hold in your hand, like fear, love, loss, hope, truth.

And then something happened. It was a fragment of time, a breath of time. It was like being in a car in pouring rain and driving under an overpass, and for just that second there is a profound, powerful sense of reprieve- the utter silence of non-rain.