“We can offer women what they want most of all, cures for the most common ailments of this world... When children are ailing or babies refuse to be born, when men are unfaithful, when the sky is empty of rain, when the amulets buried beneath holy wall upon instructions of the minim offer not solace and all entreaties to the priests for guidance fail, when the rituals they offer bring no comfort and no consolation, they come to us.”

“Among men and women, those in love do not always announce themselves with declarations and vows. But they are the ones who weep when you’re gone. Who miss you every single night, especially when the sky is so deep and beautiful, and the ground so very cold.”

“My mother, Abra, had taught me that all people are made from the same dust. When our days here are gone, all men and women enter the same garden. ”

“But in battle you cannot tell another when it is his time to enter the World-to-Come, nor is it possible to keep any man in this world when he wishes to leave it behind.”

“You can only know a friend so well after all. When you come right down to it, even your best friend is a puzzle.”

“All this kissing was making her crazy; it was reminding her of what she could feel, and how it could be when you wanted someone as much as he wanted you.”

“Sometimes they would sit in the parlor together, both reading – in entirely separate worlds, to be sure, but joined somehow. When this happened, other people in the family couldn't bring themselves to disturb them. All that could be heard in the parlor was the sound of pages, turning.”