“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”

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

“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?”

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

“Writing this, he had reached the pit of despair and he thought that reading it, she would at least begin to sense his tragedy and her part in it. It was not that she had ever forced her way on him. That had never been necessary. Her way had simply been the air he breathed and when at last he had found other air, he couldn't survive in it. He felt that even if she didn't understand at once, the letter would leave her with an enduring chill and perhaps in time lead her to see herself as she was.”

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