Sometimes,' Sylvie said, 'one can mistake gratitude for love.

If you don't have a unique voice, then you're not really a writer.

They said love made you strong, but in Louise's opinion it made you weak. It corkscrewed into your heart and you couldn't get it out again, not without ripping your heart to pieces.

Julia's vocabulary was "chock-full" of strangely archaic words - "spiffing," "crumbs," "jeepers" - that seemed to have originated in some prewar girls' annual rather than in Julia's own life. For Jackson, words were functional, they helped you get to places and explain things. For Julia, they were freighted with inexplicable emotion.

If people believed in eternal damnation they might not be seizing the day quite so much.

In the end, it is my belief, words are the only things that can construct a world that makes sense.

The past is what you take with you.