“Christmas is not an external event at all, but a piece of one's home that one carries in one's heart.”

“One is not struck by the truth until prompted quite accidentally by some external event.”

“Sometimes, the only soul that can mend a broken heart is the one that broke it. For they are the ones holding all the pieces.”

“I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one's skin, at the extreme corners of one's eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe.”

“No one mentioned the sad piece of tinsel, naked in places, hanging across the chimneybreast, nor that Twelfth Night was a week ago. No one mentioned the two Christmas cards on the mantelpiece. No one mentioned them because inside they were blank.”

“At home, I mainly used to read. I wished to stifle with external sensations all that was ceaselessly boiling up inside me. And among external sensations the only one possible for me was reading. Reading was, of course, a great help. It stirred, delighted, and tormented me.”