“Hands are difficult. You would think they would be just five quick lines, but no, they have personalities as intimate as faces. Elizabeth's hands, for instancethey are fine hands, with long fingers...”

“Do you not think, Mrs. Givings, that snow is always kind? Because it has to fall slowly, to meet the ground slowly, or the eyelash slowly And things that meet each other slowly are kind.”

“Do you think we make sad things into songs in order to hold on to the sadness or to banish itI think it is to banish the sadness. So then if you write a happy song, is it not sadder than a sad song...”

“I have loved enough women to know how to paint.If I had loved fewer, I would be an illustrator; if I had loved more, I would be a poet.”

“That is why they have poets—to classify all the degrees of love. It is for scientists to classify the maladies arising from the want of it.”

“That is why they have poets—to classify all the degrees of love. It is for scientists to classify the maladies arising from the want of it.”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”