"I know which of my books I hate, which I can manage to tolerate, which I like and which for some personal reason I love. I love only three. The first is a book I wrote in Devon, a children's book called The Valley of Song, a mixed up, confused book liked by a few children (and how I adored those children) but otherwise a quickly vanishing failure. I wrote it very much under the shadow of death but so much seemed to come through to me from the shadow that I loved the book."--Elizabeth Goudge.