“There is no happily-ever-after to run to. We have to work for happiness.”

“The longing for something beyond yourself, beyond anything you have ever known or dreamed of?”

“Have you noticed," she asked him, "how we live much of our lives in the past and most of the rest of it in the future? Have you noticed how often the present moment slips by quiet unnoticed?”

“Was memory always as much of a burden as it could sometimes be a blessing.”

“I know it is something of a cliche to say that love makes all things possible, but I believe it does. It is not a magic wand that can be waved over life to make it all sweet and lovely and trouble ...”

“Sometimes even the imagination lets one down.”

“When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for t...”

“You know Balbec so well - do you have friends in the area?'I have friends wherever there are companies of trees, wounded but not vanquished, which huddle together with touching obstinacy to implore...”

“Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying youre friends is easy. Being friends is not.”

“Such nice people, the Hillingdons, though she's not really very easy to know, is she? I mean, she's always very pleasant and all that, but one never seems to get to know her better.'Miss Marple agr...”