It is books that are a key to the wide world; if you can't do anything else, read all that you can.

The magical descriptions of Italy and hilarious observations about love, travel, natives and foreigners in Love in Idleness are but a few of its many pleasures. Amanda Craig has created a hot shimmery climate in which a cast of old friends, quirky family members and naughty children who make love potions come to know themselves and their hearts. A delightful brew.

I had forgotten what it was like, to be drawn to a person...I'd forgotten how your blood flows toward a person when they move, so that all at once you know what the pull of gravity feels like. and you know that this is something strong and important, something that you need for life, this woman moving through the room.

It is books that are a key to the wide world; if you can't do anything else, read all that you can.

Ordinary life was laced with miracles, I knew that, had read enough poetry to understand that we are elevated with the knowing, and yet it was difficult to notice and be grateful when one was continually fatigued and irritated. I suppose that unquenchable sense of wonder is what separates us dolts from the saints and the poets.

Is it love that connects us, is that what it is? I never knew that the feeling I have is regular old love because it's so-intricate. Perhaps there is another name for it, one we don't yet know. I used to think that love was simple and noticeable, like rain falling, so that just as you'd look at your skin and say Water, you would also wake in the morning and say Love. But it has been underneath, this new and old thing I feel, subterranean, silent and steady, like blood, rushing along and along without often making itself known.

...you have to learn where your pain is. You have to burrow down and find the wound, and if the burden of it is too terrible to shoulder, you have to shout it out; you have to shout for help... And then finally, the way through grief is grieving.