“Books are living things with blood and bones, and it breaks our heart when people dissect them.”

“The words shot through Vivi's bones and blood and muscle, and her body relaxed, so that when her feet touched the ground they met the earth differently, as though they had found roots that reached deep down and anchored to something tender and undamaged.”

“The notes danced through the June air; Vivi could feel them dust her hair and shoulders. She could feel the notes enter her and settle deep into her bones.”

“[T]he right way to pray is not to beg, but to picture good things, to banish all bad things from our mind.”

“You cannot escape from life. Life is not a book. You can't just set it down on the coffee table and walk away from it when it gets boring or you get tired.”

“When the Deep Purple falls,Over sleepy garden walls, And the stars begin to flicker in the sky,Thru the mist of a memoryYou wander back to me,Breathing my name with a sigh.In the still of the night,Once again I hold you tight, Tho' you're gone, your love lives onWhen moonlight beams.And as long as my heart will beatLover, we'll always meetHere in my Deep Purple dreams.”

“…the love we most cherish will, of necessity, bring us pain. Because that love is like the setting of a body with broken bones. But I want to stage the setting. I want to direct all scenes.”