When the cold comes to New England it arrives in sheets of sleet and ice. In December, the wind wraps itself around bare trees and twists in between husbands and wives asleep in their beds. It shakes the shingles from the roofs and sifts through cracks in the plaster. The only green things left are the holly bushes and the old boxwood hedges in the village, and these are often painted white with snow. Chipmunks and weasels come to nest in basements and barns; owls find their way into attics. At night,the dark is blue and bluer still, as sapphire of night.

Hearts were made for being broken. There's really no way around it if you want to be a human being.

When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure.

My sorrow is I used to read all the time and now, as a writer, I don't have the time to read.

Some things, when they change, never do return to the way they once were. Butterflies for instance, and women who've been in love with the wrong man too often.

[Fairy tales] are like a journey to the woods and the many ways you can get lost. Some people say it's not a good idea to read fairy tales to anyone under the age of eight because they are brutal and raw. When I was a kid I often felt that kids's books were speaking down to me, but I never felt that way about fairy tales. They are bloody and scary, but so is life.

...and so many orchards circled the village that on some crisp October afternoons the whole wold smelled like pie.