I woke up this morning,” Gabriel said, “thinking of nothing more than rolling over and pulling you into my arms and kissing you again. Kissing: only kissing. As if I were a green boy of fourteen. In case you don’t realize it, Kate, kissing is not a man’s usual inclination in the morning.

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.

You are absolutely beautiful," Anne said. "But if you see yourself, you'll want to pin your hair back like a shepherdess in a bad play." (Eleanor) "Are you saying that I normally look as if I'm tending sheep? With straw in my hair? As if I might yodel?

Sometimes I spend all day in my dressing gown. But if I do dress, I make myself ravishing because then, I feel ravishing.

Dogs are high on life. Cats need catnip.

Dogs come when they're called; cats take a message and get back to you later.

One more time, she promised herself. That wasn't too trollopy. She wouldn't be too trollopy. But when they actually got to the guardhouse? Trollopy.