“So I just live with my insomnia. I do crossword puzzles, or wander out to the music room and fool around on the piano, or read. Those late hours when the world is completely still, when the only sound is the rustle of the air in the vents and the wind visiting the trees outside, when the darkness is tucked tight around the house and you feel as life itself the movements of your own consciousness-these are wonderful hours to read. There is no interruption.”

“...and in the deep, dreaming hours I am easily moved by the stories of the real men and women who have lived out their passions on a scale so much greater than my own. It is at night, with a book open and these noble ghosts rising from the page, that I believe most strongly in the grandeur of life and feel most alone.”

“I knew that somehow this loneliness was linked to all my other fears and worries and premonitions and to my sense, that fall, of the terrible fragility of everything around me.”

“Limitations are like mirages created by your own mind. When you realise that limitation do not exist, those around you will also feel it and allow you inside their space.”

“I told you, you're my black pearl. When i first set eyes on you in the servant's hall I thought you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.”

“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.”

“Kat and Will must have been quietly plotting their escape for years, and I'd been so intent on making sure that their homework was done and their desks were tidy and their shoelaces tied that I'd missed all the signs.”