“Sometimes thoughts merely pass through a man's head without mishap, but sometimes they fall out of his mouth on the way through.”

“It is not the destination where you end up but the mishaps and memories you create along the way!”

“Yes, you should talk," he said. "Sometimes a sad man can talk the sadness right out through his mouth. Sometimes a killin' man can talk the murder right out of his mouth.”

“What stories these are, what lessons they teach us. That the redemption of mankind comes through woman, for she takes man's seed, nurtures it within her, and brings it forth into the world. That love is often a quest, to be earned and deserved before it is given. That love can be lusty and earthy, as well as emotional and spiritual... .But above all that love is forever.”

“Of course I'm not going to look through the keyhole. That's something only servants do. I'm going to hide in the bay window.”

“Shay," she said. "Shay McKenna," as if trying out his name, saying it for the first time. "Did you ever love me, even a little?"Love you?" He turned his head and brushed his lips across her fingers. "I'm loving you now, mo chridh. After I'm dead, a thousand years from now, whatever's left of me, be it a soul or just a handful of dust, that will be loving you.”

“Forever, reading has been central, the necessary fix, the support system. Her life has been informed by reading. She has read not just for distraction, sustenance, to pass the time, but she has read in a state of primal innocence, reading for enlightenment, for instruction, even. ... She is as much a product of what she has read as of the way in which she has lived; she is like millions of others built by books, for whom books are an essential foodstuff, who could starve without.”