In the face of events that threaten to overwhelm our lives, storytelling gives us a way of reclaiming ourselves and reaffirming our connections with other people-those who listen to our stories and, by doing so, bear witness with us.

Silly of me not to have realized it. One often finds Greek temples lurking in the woods of English estates. Sneaky things, temples.

It wasn't as if she was terrified of heights, she simply preferred to be closer to solid ground, where words like plummet and plunge did not linger in her mind.

There are three needs of the griever: To find the words for the loss, to say the words aloud and to know that the words have been heard.

Suicide is unspeakable, and to speak it is somehow to bring it into a human, imaginable sphere, even if only in the moment of speaking. The need to tell is both a need to tell oneself and a need to be heard.... Telling and being heard are the first steps toward reconnection.

It must be quite difficult, concealing your superior male qualities behind a mask of feigned humility.” Why, Gillian, it’s that very ability that makes us so superior.

Adventure, like beauty, is very much in the eye of the beholder.

I say seduce her, seduce her tonight. Break the door down if you have to. Tell her all those things you said to me about her. You will love her more tomorrow than today and how you want to die with her hand in yours–which is an excellent line, by the way, that I fully intend to borrow when the time comes.

When your lips meet mine I feel as though I have never been kissed before.

As I have yet to meet a gentleman I wished to spend the rest of my days with, I would say the failure was on their part rather than mine.

When a man finds the one woman who is right, it scarcely matters what else is wrong.