Of course I loved books more than people.

One needs no particular talent to be polite. On the contrary, being nice is what's left when you've failed at everything else.

To anyone who took the trouble to look, I was plainly visible, but when people are expecting to see nothing, that is usually what they see.

Everybody has a story. It's like families. You might not know who they are, might have lost them, but they exist all the same. You might drift apart or you might turn your back on them, but you can't say you haven't got them. Same goes for stories.

She could not read a book for fear of the feelings she might find in it.

Without the past to cast its long shadow, might you see the future more clearly?

Fate, at first so amenable, so reasonable, so open to negotiation, ends up by exacting a cruel revenge for happiness.