“She is only a young woman who did not want to become a nun. The world is full of them.”

“But anyone who has been that young knows that the great grief of love is that your body feels the most when it knows the least.”

“Someone told me much later that you always know the people who are going to make a difference in your life, from the very first time you set eyes on them, even if you do not like them at all. And I had noticed him, as he had me. God help us.”

“If grace belongs to God, there are those who say that luck belongs to the Devil and that he looks after his own.”

“Obsessed? I don't know what the word means. I know there were times when I couldn't think of anything else. I used to stay in every weeknight in the hope that he might get free and call me. It felt like I had a disease I didn't want to get rid of. I suppose that's a definition of obsession, yes.”

“Missing rubs the soul raw.”

“So if we could not have love, my husband and I, then at least I could have alchemy.”