Normally book ideas come to me in a moment.

The sign of a masterpiece: A painting when there's a lack of resolution.

It was not a house where secrets could be kept easily.

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.

I find that when I come out of the library I'm in what I call the library bliss of being totally taken away from the distractions of life.

I wanted to wear the mantle and the pearls. I wanted to know the man who painted her like that.