You felt a deep sorrow, the kind of melancholy you feel when you're in a beautiful place and the sun is going down

Liquor is the kiss of the angels as well as the curse of the devil. It can conceal but also can reveal

And so I have to live. Because we live for more than just ourselves, Most of the time we live for others, keep putting one foot before the other, left and right, left and right, so that walking becomes a habit, just like breathing. Ina n out, left and right.

And a mother without children is not a mother at all, and if I am not a mother, than I am nothing. Nothing. I am like sugar dissolved in a glass of water. Or, I am like salt, which disappears when you cook with it. I am salt. Without my children, I cease to exist.

What she had believed was indignation or rage or a deep intolerance for injustice came down to this: she was irreducibly in love with this bewitching planet, this thrilling life, this heartbreaking species she belonged to, with its capacity for stupefying destruction and breathtaking magnanimity.

The Forty Rules of Love is a wise, joyous page-turner... and one that speaks urgently to our war-ravaged times.