Quotes from Harriet Doerr

One of the best things about aging is being able to watch imagination overtake memory.

You cannot just waste time. Otherwise you'll die to regret it.

They have not considered that memories are like corks left out of bottles. They swell. They no longer fit.

It is something they will see everywhere - a disregard for danger, a companionship with death. By the end of a year they will know it well: the antic bravado, the fatal games, the coffin shop beside the cantina, the sugar skulls on the frosted cake.

Writing derives from an accumulation of experience. It's as if you collect facts and observations over time, like a stone to stand on. From there, imagination takes over.

Paco had a way with plants.....Sara believed that whenever he walked under a tree it grew a new branch to shade him.

With the coming of these people who know the language, we are losing our liberty to speak, he remarked to himself.

Please wait,' she said in Spanish, then repeated the words, 'Esperen, por favor,' remembering that the single verb meant both to wait and hope. This extraordinary language, she thought.