A spider brings good luck before midnight and bad luck after.

Their love was something which coloured the air between them like sunlight.

The great thing about books is that you can end with a question mark.

The past is an obdurate stranger that puts as many marks on us as we attempt to impose on it.

Guilleaume left La Praline with a small bag of florentines in his pocket; before he had turned the corner of avenue des Francs Bourgeois I saw him stoop to offer one to the dog. A pat, a bark, a wagging of the short stubby tail. As I said, some people never have to think about giving.

Before you have children, you mostly think about the world in terms of yourself. And when you become a parent, the focus shifts to somebody else.

Somehow the anticipation of pain can be even more troubling, more a misery than the pain itself.