"Like a lot of what happens in novels, inspiration is a sort of spontaneous combustion--the oily rags of the head and heart."

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As soon as a man and woman of almost any age are alone together within four walls it is assumed that anything may happen. Spontaneous combustion, instant fornication, triumph of the senses. What possibilities men and women must see in each other to infer such dangers. Or, believing in the dangers, how often they must think about the possibilities.

— Alice Munro