He could be alone with her, but it was difficult learning to be alone without her.

Love makes us do wicked things.

It’s only a story.′ As if such words made it less real. But I did not believe him even then, for stories were written down, and the words on the page were proof enough. Fixed and permanent in time, the words, if anything, made the people and places more real than the everchanging world.

In the dream house, the boy listened for the monster under his bed.

Had you not been born, you would not know that it is like to be alive, and without life, death is impossible to understand.

Whatever had made those marks seemed to have come out of the water.

The few other shoppers were women like herself. Widows, perhaps, but grandmothers surely, out hunting for birthday gifts or bargains to store away for next winter. They shuffled in a daze from bin to bin, and Margaret read in every face some suffering or disappointment, their hopes and dreams marked down, 40 percent off.

Never enter a toy shop after midnight.

Once I learned to read, I could not imagine my life otherwise.

Love is the madness which allows us to believe in magic.