Wine talks; ask anyone. The oracle at the street corner; the uninvited guest at the wedding feast; the holy fool. It ventriloquizes. It has a million voices. It unleashes the tongue, teasing out secrets you never meant to tell, secrets you never even knew. It shouts, rants, whispers. It speaks of great plans, tragic loves, and terrible betrayals. It screams with laughter. It chuckles softly to itself. It weeps in front of its own reflection. It revives summers long past and memories best forgotten. Every bottle a whiff of other times, other places, everyone...a humble miracle

She always had that about her, that look of otherness, of eyes that see things much too far, and of thoughts that wander off the edge of the world.

I think everybody has a secret life.

Library-denigrators, pay heed:suggesting that the Internet is a viable substitute for libraries is like saying porn could replace your wife.

If you want to know what's important to a culture, learn their language.

From a very young age my mother persuaded me that I could write for fun, but I had to have a proper job - very good advice.

Children are knives, my mother once said. They don’t mean to, but they cut. And yet we cling to them, don’t we, we clasp them until the blood flows.