Ah, he has too many ideas, that man da Vinci. His mind works faster than his hands.

So if we could not have love, my husband and I, then at least I could have alchemy.

Someone told me much later that you always know the people who are going to make a difference in your life, from the very first time you set eyes on them, even if you do not like them at all. And I had noticed him, as he had me. God help us.

If grace belongs to God, there are those who say that luck belongs to the Devil and that he looks after his own.

I listen to people talking sometimes, that great river that is language, with all its undercurrents of grammar and nuance, and I wonder how we all learn so quickly to speak it, given that we begin when we are barely old enough to stand upright. I have no memory of finding it hard. Indeed, I have no memory of it at all.

Missing rubs the soul raw.

The Devil may take the reckless, but the good will surely die of boredom. Boredom and frustration.