If it has to be done at all, it must be done with grace.

Before anything else I was a woman who was capable of passion and who had a great need and a great desire for love.

... all that that I learn just teaches me that I know nothing.

Just because one man calls him Allah and another calls him God is no reason for believers to be enemies.

En Ma Fin Est Ma Commencement - In my end is my beginning.

And – I think you know, don’t you? – that I love you, Anne.’ I feel as if I have been living in a loveless world for too long. The last tender face I saw was my father’s when he sailed for England. ‘You do? Truly?’ ‘I do.’ He rises to his feet and pulls me up to stand beside him. My chin comes to his shoulder, we are both dainty, long-limbed, coltish: well-matched. I turn my face into his jacket. ‘Will you marry me?’ he whispers. ‘Yes,’ I say.

He may well speak French and Latin and half a dozen languages, but since he has nothing to say – what good are they?