My father was often impatient during March, waiting for winter to end, the cold to ease, the sun to reappear. March was an unpredictable month, when it was never clear what might happen. Warm days raised hopes until ice and grey skies shut over the town again.

Jane Austen easily used half a page describing someone else's eyes; she would not appreciate summarizing her reading tastes in ten titles.

We say very little, for we do not need to. We are silent together, each in her own world, knowing the other is just at her back.

You're so calm and quiet, you never say. But there are things inside you. I see them sometimes, hiding in your eyes.

He saw things in a way that others did not, so that a city I had lived in all my life seemed a different place, so that a woman became beautiful with the light on her face.

Yes, well, life is a folly. If you live long enough, nothing is surprising.

I didn't move. I've learned from years of experience that dogs and falcons and ladies come back to you if you stay where you are.