the Germans had researched her family; they were very thorough after all, and they knew things about her grandfather that she herself didn't know. Sh… - Alice Hoffman

For me—and I think for most writers—you're a reader first and then it just happens. You so love it that you want to be part of it, and you start writing.

"We must hope for the best," she told the girl. She might have said more if she'd had the freedom to speak her mind, but in her formation she hadn't been given the choice to confide what she felt. If she could do so there would have been much she would have said: how green the verdant countryside was, how bright the light had become, how grateful she was to her maker each and every minute, how the birds in the treetops could be heard even when the train rumbled by, how the first of the season's bees hit against the windowpanes as if searching for flowers, how absolutely marvelous it was to be in the world. (p72)

If you are loved, you never lose the person who loved you. You carry them with you all your life.