“Jack made a pass at me, too. He thought my riding crop was alluring until I smacked him across the face with it." "Good Grief," I said. "Is any woman safe from him? "If I were Horace Malvern," said Emma, "I'd hide the cows.”

“They were tales of commonplace courage and optimism, for I knew from my own experience that everyday virtues endure best, and that quiet courage is worth more than the grandest derring-do.”

“Fairy tales, as Nell had said, are always complicated.”

“Maybe, when all was said and done, that was where love began and what kept it alive: the simple, everyday act of paying attention.”

“When I learned of Aunt Dimity's death, I was stunned. Not because she was dead, but because I had never known she'd been alive.”

“A woman without a past is like a fruitcake without brandy—insipid!”

“Helplessness in the face of a child's suffering is the curse of parenthood.”