“Over the drop, a luminous pond lay below them like a pale magic lantern. It was as if the moon had plummeted into the water and smashed open. Engulfed in darkness, with only a scatter of stars abov...”

“Maria didnt fear the sea but, as taught by her father, she respected its power. In her experience the ocean had no intent to drown travellers.”

“A flock of small birds took off from the wall of the fort. They moved like a length of dark silk caught by the breeze as they headed out to sea. Behind them, the sky was the colour of forget-me-not...”

“He noticed that he felt calmer now she was here, still in that grey dress with her dowdy hat, the air around her redolent with orchid oil. Perhaps all women in England had this effect. Perhaps they...”

“A vision of the little house in Soho flickered across his minds eye, his mother at a desk, writing in her journal, with hazy sunlight streaming through the morning windows. The woman inhabited a wo...”

“There was something indomitable about Maria like Britannia. Hed heard that she kept her head during a Chilean earthquake the year before when men of greater age and experience had panicked. Afterw...”

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what...”

“His pen spoke more to her than he ever did.In the war of words, some are unwritten and some are unspoken.”

“How might I get over this? How would I be able to overlook the way he used to be with me? How could I overlook that his fingers touched my indiscernible soul before it twisted my nipples? How might...”

“Indifference destroys vocation unlike any other intangible force, for the reason that it shakes the very core of our motivation for doing what we do.”

“Success is the result of actions. Stop wishing and start doing.”

“My life is music, and in some vague, mysterious and subconscious way, I have always been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach for perfection in music, o...”

“My religion is Get Over It.”

“Resiliency, like a cartwheel, requires core strength and a disregard for gravity. Only one of which can be willed.”

“Resilience is about B.O.U.N.C.E-Bouncing forward includes bouncing back.”