Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them. —SUZANNE NECKER, WIFE OF JACQUES NECKER, MINISTER OF FINANCE

Things change, and not always for the better.

You can't change the desert. You can only take the fastest course through it. Wishing it's an oasis won't make it so.

I'd always thought I would feel like an animal released from its cage when my student days were finished, I felt more like a bird that had been pushed from its nest and told it must fly.

I wonder if our names determine our destiny, or if destiny leads us to choose certain names.

This is how memories are; what seems so clear and unforgettable at one moment vanishes like steam the next.

After all, that's why we read historical fiction-to be transported to another time, and to be astonished at ancient people's lives and traditions, just as they would probably be astonished at ours.