Hope is a straw hat hanging beside a window covered with frost.

Kindness is stronger than iron bars.

The cure for a broken heart is simple, my lady. A hot bath and a good night's sleep.

The most wicked criminals have God on their lips at all times, for God is the only one who can stomach them.

To love someone is to catch your breath whenever he walks in the room.

It is almost impossible to describe happiness, because at the time it feels entirely natural, as if all the rest of your life has been the aberration; only in retrospect does it swim into focus as the rare and precious thing it is. When it is present, it seems to be eternal, abiding forever, and there is no need to examine it or clutch it. Later, when it has evaporated, you stare in dismay at your empty palm, where only a little of the perfume lingers to prove that once it was there, and now is flown.

One always imagines that the days that change one’s life must be marked with something extraordinary in nature—storms and lightning, darkness at noon, and so on. In truth they are indistinguishable from any other, which is one reason we feel mocked, as if the world is telling us we are inconsequential.