To be rather than to seem.

The sensation reminds him of the first snow of winter, for those first few hours when everything is blanketed in white, soft and quiet.

You send me all these roses. Every time I think the last bouquet has arrived, finally, another turns up. I’m running out of vases. I didn’t know roses came in so many colors. You say they’re the perfect symbols of love because they have thorns and love is pain. I say life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something. And you don’t get it. You say you love me, but you don’t speak my language. You don’t even realize I’m an orchid girl.

You don't have to be a chef or even a particularly good cook to experience proper kitchen alchemy: the moment when ingredients combine to form something more delectable than the sum of their parts.

Because I do not wish to know,” he says. “I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark.

They say it's darkest before the dawn, but it also tend to be quietest, and the quiet lets you hear yourself better.

Are we going to discuss whatever it is you are here to discuss instead of dancing around it?” he asks. “I was never a particularly good dancer.