My fingers positively itched to drift at length along their spines, to arrive at one whose lure I could not pass, to pluck it down, to inch it open, then to close my eyes and inhale the soul-sparking scent of old and literate dust.

Memory is a cruel mistress with whom we all must learn to dance.

She hadn't wanted to be loved carefully, only well.

But everyone's an expert with the virtue of hindsight . . . .

... people who'd led dull and blameless lives did not give thanks for second chances.

Better to lose oneself in action than to wither in despair.

Hope, how she had grown to hate the word. It was an insideious seed planted inside a person's soul, surviving covertly on little tending, then flowering so spectacularly that none could help but cherish it.