“No, solitude did not trouble her. She could spend long minutes gazing out the window, hours listening to the BBC on the public radio station. She relished the very texture of her privacy, its depth...”

“...there are only two things that really matter in life. Literature and love.”

“When I asked if she read poetry anymore, she said no. she had lost her taste for it. That was how she said it, lost her taste. I asked how that could happen, and she said she agreed with Plato, or ...”

“One needed, she saw now, only a few belongings, just as one needed only a few close friends, and a single passion - it need not be a person, neccissarily.”

“A man's voice was saying, "Odette seems a little off tonight.""You think?" answered a woman."Less confident than last night's," said the man. "I wonder if she's injured." A loud put-upon sigh. "Not...”

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.”