And so they played some of the world's loveliest piano music - the exiled homesick girl, the humiliated, tired old man. Not properly. Better than that.

When you're sad, my Little Star, go out of doors. It's always better underneath the open sky.

She was so intelligent that she could think herself into beauty. Intelligence...they don't talk about it much, the poets, but when a woman is intelligent and passionate and good.

To show too much joy in a place such as this would be unseemly but, as he padded toward her, his tail was extended in a manner which would make wagging possible should all go as expected.

This is worse than Hollywood, he thought. A girl comes in with a pork chop and I write a song for her.

Loneliness had taught Harriet that there was always someone who understood - it was just so often that they were dead, and in a book.

Not a frog, I hope?” he asked…She shook her head. “No. And if it was I wouldn’t kiss it, I promise you. I might kiss a prince if I could be sure he’d turn into a frog, but not the other way around.