There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner.

A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.

Art, its completeness, its formedness, its finishedness, had no power to console. Words on the other hand, were a lifeline. They left their hushed rhythm behind, a counter to the slow in and out of Emmeline's breathing.

People whose lives are not balanced by a healthy love of money suffer from an appalling obsession with personal integrity.

She was a do-gooder, which means that all the ill she did, she did without realizing it.

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

Reading can be dangerous.