It’s better to live like a flame, to know a man and love him even if he can’t be yours, then never to love at all.

Life should not be measured by time. The only thing that counts is how one uses the time one has.

Yes Leopold," Eleanor said in a low, mocking voice. "Do start to shine, please. I think I saw the rising, but I definitely missed the shining.

She still remembered sitting for hours as a little girl and pretending to be a hassock. A foot stool. Because if she could just stay very small, and very quiet, her mother would forget she was there, and then she wouldn't scream about people and places and things that had gone wrong.

We all think we have time, you know. It's this miracle substance and there seems to be so much of it, and then all of a sudden, it's gone.

Shame can kill the imagination. It's hard to keep writing in the face of cultural derision.

I don't want to have to earn love by giving up my ability to make decisions that determine how I live.