Hawthorne has given us a tradition that some people refer to as Yankee Magic Realism, and I do think there is a certain quality to the landscape that definitely leads into the dark woods.

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

Love is worth the sum of itself, and nothing more.

What I like about fairy tales is the language and the matter-of-fact way of introducing magic, where it's accepted that a fox could talk or a gate could just appear in a wall. I think fairy tales are so psychological.

I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there's a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us

Being human means losing everything we love best in the world," she murmured as she released me. "But would you ask to be anything else?

But what we are given is taken as well, so that we know God's glory comes to us from His will alone.