“...it seemed marriage by its very design was meant to seek out love and destroy it.”

“You've written plenty of romantic tales," he said, taking the book from her hands and gently closing it. "Didn't you know I would come?”

“The urge to draw near to the female silhouette resided deep in the ancient center of a man...”

“Bronson always said that, of all the girls, Louisa was most like her mother, and he didn't mean it as a compliment. Both were mercurial, passionate, willful. Louisa had seen despair like Abba's from the inside. She had inherited it the way some daughters came into a silver tray or a set of spoons.”

“When women set their hearts on anything it is a known fact that they seldom fail to accomplish it. ~Mrs. podgers' Teapot”

“Write until your fingers break. It may be the cure for everything.”

“Each of us, when our day's work is done, must seek our ideal, whether it be love or pinochle or lobster à la Newburg, or the sweet silence of the musty bookshelves.”