“He tasted of whisky and his skin was rough where he hadnt shaved, but Mirabelle kissed him back.”

“Nothing is long ago in an archive, my dear. In the records we treat the dead as same as the living.thats the whole point of keeping papers. It doesnt matter if its a hundred years or only a few wee...”

“Didnt young people care what the generation before them had achieved? And if not, why had everyone gone through those grim difficult wartime years?”

“It was nearly ten years since the peace though her memories of the war still felt fresh.”

“Jack had been the love of her life and he was gone. It seemed now that there had never been bad times, though she knew that wasnt true.”

“Vesta was so good with paperwork you could hand her a file of drab, seemingly dull information and shed construct a story from it worthy of a novel.”

“If your arteries are good, eat more ice cream. If they are bad, drink more red wine. Proceed thusly.”

“The love of all people except the French people, is deep in the mind of the great doctors of the French Republic.”

“With heart at rest I climbed the citadel'sSteep height, and saw the city as from a tower,Hospital, brothel, prison, and such hells,Where evil comes up softly like a flower.Thou knowest, O Satan, pa...”

“Prsente je vous fuis; absente, je vous trouve;Dans le fond des forts votre image me suit”

“Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.”

“The only French word I know is oui, which means yes, and only recently did I learn its spelled o-u-i and not w-e-e.”