Husbands lie, Masha. I should know; I've eaten my share. That's lesson one. Lesson number two: among the topics about which a husband is most likely to lie are money, drink, black eyes, political affiliation, and women who squatted on his lap before and after your sweet self.

The smell of loving is a difficult one to describe, but if you think of the times when someone has held you close and made you safe, you will remember how it smells just as well as I do.

Why should he be spared?' 'Someone ought to be.' And it will not be me. I have survived, but I have not been spared.

Everyone is afraid of you and when folk are afraid of a person it usually means the person is cruel in some way, and I think you are cruel, Miss Marquess, but please don’t punish me for saying it. I think you know you’re cruel. I think you like being cruel. I think calling you cruel is the same as calling someone else kind. And I don’t want to run errands for someone cruel.

I've always had enough, even if my enough and your enough are as different as an elephant and a minaret.

The great blessing and great cruelty of youth is that there seems to be time enough.

Death stands behind every bride, every groom.