I am genuinely buzzed about it! I think we just keep getting better, smarter, wiser, truer, happier.

I cry a lot because I miss people. I cry a lot because they die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more. ... And so it's what I dread more than anything is the isolation.

I think acting your age is allowing other people to make decisions for you about how you should behave and what is age-appropriate. I encourage people to live and not be tied down with other people's expectations of what you should be doing. If you want to do something, go and do it. We overly worship the altar of youth. It's not good for our mental health. As a culture, we need to get better at seeing the beauty in aging and the beauty in things that are not young.

I saw them recently on their morning walk, and they caused me a pang. I have always wanted a pug and now I can't have one, because buying a puppy when you are too old to take it for walks is unfair. There are dog-walkers, of course; but the best part of owning a dog is walking with it, enjoying its delight when it detects the signs that a walk is imminent, and its glee when its lead is unsnapped and it can bound off over the grass, casting cheerful looks back at you from time to time to make sure that you are still in touch.

The white-water canoe run I did solo at Lady Evelyn Park 20 years ago. It was impromptu. It took the skin off my knees. It was an unnecessary risk.

Of a painless disease, with a month’s warning, on a spring day, with some good news in hand.

Block? Not as such, but I've had to throw things out because they weren't working. Sometimes I just get lazy, but that's not the same a s a block.

I’d stop saying yes to inessential requests.

In 1972, by Farley Mowat, after I’d had a modest success: “Now you’re a target, and people will shoot at you.” Which is not about how to write, but about some of the consequences of having done so.

As for motivation, I'd say it's a combo of 50s Puritan work ethic and finish-it-itis -- I hate not finishing things.