“...but I realized now that love was more than a feeling. Love was something you did for another person...”

“Trying to forge my own destiny had nearly destroyed me, but his love held the power to heal.”

“How many times in life have I been advised to "toe the line," to "tone it down," to stop "pushing the envelope"? As a journalist, I had to keep my opinions to myself for 30 years. I thought that, as an artist, I'd have the liberty to express my views. Now I'm told that doing so might hurt my readership. I'm so idealistic, as I said elsewhere on FB today, that I think people ought to read my books because they're good. Period.”

“Al-Lah alone decides whether we live or die. The rest is vanity.”

“I was white. Chalk had more color than I did. And quite possibly more personality.”

“Millie was never possessive, never effusive, and never demonstrative. Her even-tempered approach to her marriage should have been enough to convince everyone that she admired, but did not love, her husband. Yet for years now, his sisters had suspected something else.Perhaps unrequited love was like a specter in the house, a presence that brushed at the edge of senses, a heat in the dark, a shadow under the sun.”

“Sometimes people fall in love with those who do not return the same strength of feelings. It is as it is,” he said with a quiet intensity. “What Igive, I give freely. You owe me nothing, not love, not friendship, not even obligation”