“A family is like medicine." She twisted her lips into a sardonic smile. "Best in small doses.”

“Family, like arsenic, works best in small doses...unless you prefer to die.”

“His lips made a grim twist that was like the joyless cousin of a smile.”

“I could see that Isabel listened to him with growing exasperation. Larry had no notion that he was driving a dagger in her heart and with his every detached word twisting it in the wound. But when she spoke it was with a faint smile on her lips.”

“Sandrine opened her eyes to the soft gray light of early dawn. Recollections of sensual pleasure seemed to caress her body, bringing a smile to her lips. She lay back in the pillow and listened to the breathing of Philippe beside her. She lingered in the memory of the previous night, a memory that was like a warm and tender embrace, an evening of small intimate harmonies. As it should be.”

“Fiction and poetry are doses, medicines. What they heal is the rupture reality makes on the imagination.”