“Each morning the light came through the slats of the shutters in ripples, and as it washed towards the inhabitants of the Casa Luna it smoothed away memories of the past, It was for this that they ...”

“Every profession is an island whose inhabitants earn a precarious living by taking in each others washing.”

“He had heard the voice of London that lives and breathes beneath the rumble of traffic, a voice like the continual high-pitched shriek you hear when you put your head beneath the waves of the sea. ...”

“Mostly, what people mean by love is laziness.”

“There was a certain usefulness in having a husband whom most people could barely tolerate: it deflected envy, for one thing.”

“A hundred years ago, people had perfectly understood that you could die of a broken heart, now they thought you were making a fuss about nothingCertain kinds of suffering are like radiation: they c...”

“One of Renee's friends asked her, "Does your boyfriend wear glasses?" She said, "No, he wears a Walkman.”

“I think of myself as a political idiot. Idiot, in ancient Greece, denoted a common person without access to knowledge and information--all women, by definition, and most men. I am unable to make ju...”

“She's all brute force and '90s clichs.”

“Some experiences are universal. A girl is a girl whether she lives in West Omaha or Sweet Valley. Books are often far more than books.”

“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.”

“The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,And all the sweet serenity of books”