“The exchange of a wife for a pair of gates( “The finest this side Paradise,”) Brandwyn had written in his diary”

“It is written that a wife shall be submissive to her husband. It is nowhere written that his mistress should be.”

“Cursed luck! —said he, biting his lip as he shut the door, —for man to be master of one of the finest chains of reasoning in nature, —and have a wife at the same time with such a head-piece, that he cannot hang up a single inference within side of it, to save his soul from destruction.”

“All paradises have gates,” Falchi said. “You’d wonder why God made Paradise with an exit if he didn’t anticipate having to use it eventually.”

“Southerners love a good tale. They are born reciters, great memory retainers, diary keepers, letter exchangers . . . great talkers.”

“But I also believe there is enormous value in the piece of writing that goes no further than the one person for whom it was intended, that no combination of written words is more eloquent than those exchanged in letters between lovers or friends, or along the pale blue lines of private diaries, where people take communion with themselves.”