Nicola Griffith

“She knew them by their thick woven cloaks, their hanging hair and beards, and their Anglisc voices: words drumming like apples spilt over wooden boards, round, rich, stirring. Like her father’s words, and her mother’s, and her sister’s. Utterly unlike Onnen’s otter-swift British or the dark liquid gleam of Irish. Hild spoke each to each. Apples to apples, otter to otter, gleam to gleam, though only when her mother wasn’t there.”

“Always know what they want to hear - not just what everyone knew they wanted to hear but what they didn't even dare name to themselves. Show them the pattern. Give them permission to do what they wanted all along.”