Quotes from Susan Wiggs

She loved him so much that it hurt. Maybe that was how love worked. If you could handle the pain, you'd find the sweetness.

What a joy life is when you have made a close working partnership with Nature, helping her to produce for the benefit of mankind new forms, colors, and perfumes in flowers which were never known before; fruits in form, size, and flavor never before seen on this globe. -Luther Burbank.

Sometimes the true value of the piece is how much a person loves it.

Unexpected change is like a breath of fresh air -- a little brisk at first, but magic for the body and soul.

He could not name precisely the special quality she possessed. A glow. An exuberance. An aggressive and determined joy that gave her the courage to push past his defenses, to confront him with unflinching courage, to look into his heart and to see something there worth fighting for.

When she stepped into the shop that evening, she felt an emptiness so vast that she almost couldn't breathe. Everything had drained out of her. "It's exhausting, isn't it?" asked Grandy. "A sadness like this. It's physically exhausting.

The moon garden of the mansion was famous, having been designed with night-blooming flowers lining the pathways and hillocks of the landscape. They stepped through open doors, went down the wide stone steps, and were greeted by the heady perfume of late-blooming autumn flowers. The pale blossoms were lit from below, setting a mood of mystery. A fountain of natural stone rose up out of a pond surrounded by terra-cotta sculptures.

Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. —Marilyn Monroe

She took down The Once and Future King and found a marked passage: "The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails." "There you have it," Natalie said to the cat. "My plan for the day.

Do you feel the magic?" "Aye," he breathed into her salt-dusted hair. "It's all around me, but most especially, here in my arms.

She patted her hair, which she wore swept up and held in place with spangled pins. The dress was a dramatic strapless red sheath she and her friend Ariel had found in a church thrift shop. Ariel swore that, after alterations, the dress would look as though it had been tailor-made for Rosa. The bright cherry-red was delicious, the open-toed ruby and rhinestone sandals made her look taller and she felt wonderful.

What I've found is that you make time for the things that matter to you. Everyone has the time. It's just a question of deciding what to do with that time.

When your pain is bad, and your strength is gone, you might start thinking of leaving." "Leaving. I like that.

If I'm all alone, then the standard for sanity is up to me entirely.

Sometimes life shoves you off into the unknown, and it turns out to be amazing.

Memories are like a series of locked doors, and once you manage to get one open, it leads to another, and then another and so on. The hard part is finding the key to that first lock and getting through it.

When she returned to Bella Vista, she discovered Isabel in her manic-baking mode. The kitchen was filled with the aromas of butter, vanilla and cinnamon. She'd created Danishes and rugelach and crispy twisty things that promised to glue themselves promptly to Tess's hips.

Try to be conspicuously accurate in everything, pictures as well as text. Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more interesting. -William Randolph Hearst

And that refuge was the most reliable place of all—between the pages of a book.

It was a store-bought sugar cookie. Not as good as Mamma's, of course. Mamma made hers with a secret ingredient- ricotta cheese- and thick, sweet icing. Now that was a cookie.

love and loss are a part of life. You and I both know that. Chances can slip away while you're looking for guarantees.

Autumn was San Francisco's summer. The days were bright and warm, scented with drying leaves and fading flowers and the ever-present salt air.

I like the organza tiebacks. They're pretty and ethereal. Lovely. I think those are the ones. Me, too. And hey, can we invent a signature cocktail for the wedding, using honey? I'm working on one made with honey syrup, apple juice and calvados. Garnished with an apple slice, of course.

The garden flourished that summer because Magnus's mother was determined to feed her family despite the depredations of the distant war. In the fall, there were beans and tomatoes and pickles to can, and jar after jar of applesauce. Mama's hives yielded fresh honey, and then willow skeps were winterized. The bees would not come out until the air warmed and the sun appeared.