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

“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.”

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

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

“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?”

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

“Mrs. Turpin felt entirely hollow except for her heart which swung from side to side as if it were agitated in a great empty drum of flesh”