Quotes from Susan Wiggs

If she hadn't paid the price of her heart, perhaps this gift would never have been hers.

A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature." —Henry David Thoreau Walden, "The Ponds

Even the most egregious captive state, bound and gagged on her damp bunk, felt eerily familiar to her. With nothing to do but lie there and think of things, she reflected that captivity took many different forms. A woman under the domination of her father or husband was as much a prisoner as a hostage on a boat. She had merely traded one form of servitude for another.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. —LAO TZU

It? You mean preserving a zygote or blastula or whatever? That's their moral obligation? Not their obligation to a living, breathing woman who just got raped?

No, my darling. I'll love the woman you keep hidden inside you. You've led men to battle, but never into your heart. Men respect you, they obey you, but they see you as a warrior. You've never had the chance to blossom.

And they didn't think to tell me they were using something that might not work?" Margie felt dizzy with rage. It blew her mind that no one had bothered to explain this to her. It was a violation of a different kind, a complete disregard for her as a person.

Hard? Yeah, especially when they don't tell people their treatment might be bullshit.

Time for lunch. Take me somewhere good. Somewhere Italian. She chose Vine, one of the cafes on the main plaza, and ordered a burrata and squash blossom pizza. The fluffy soft cheese, drizzled with fruity olive oil, paired beautifully with the crisp blossoms and homemade crust. Eaten with chilled elderflower soda, it was exactly what she'd been craving.

her home; it just happened to be where she lived. This was the House that Jack Built, she thought, hearing the singsong rhythm of the old children's story in her head. And this was the wife who lived in the house that Jack built. And there was the mistress that screwed the husband that ignored the wife who lived in the house that Jack built....

Between the covers, characters were living their lives, enacting their dramas, falling in and out of love, finding trouble, working out their problems. Even sitting closed on a shelf, a book had a life of its own. When someone opened the book, that was when the magic happened.

It was clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down. —AGATHA CHRISTIE, THE CLOCKS

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing. —Marcus Aurelius

Oh, aye. A bit of mist in the air might bring the selkies out to play. The selkies are seal people, you know.

The child endures all things." —Maria Montessori

You're good at so many things," Camille said. "I'm a fat loser," Julie stated. "And don't say I'm not fat because I am." Camille felt ill. She'd been blind to what Julie wanted. Was she a terrible mother for being overprotective? Was she letting her own fears smother her daughter? By withholding her permission to take surf rescue, she'd forced Julie to go behind her back.

Rosa was rummaging in the trunk of her car, and emerged with a large wicker basket covered with a red-and-white checkered cloth. She wore a red polka dot halter top, red clamdiggers, gold hoop earrings, big sunglasses and ruby-colored finger- and toenails. The adult-entertainment version of Red Riding Hood.

I'm fat, okay? Getting rid of my braces and glasses is not going to change that." "Stop it," Camille said. God, why were teenagers so hard? Had she been that hard? "I won't let you talk about yourself that way.

She's never know because now the store was infested with cheerleaders.

As a volunteer for the Military History Center, he visited Arlington whenever he was in town, recovering items that had been left on headstones. With his fellow volunteers, he helped catalog the items for a database so each remembrance, no matter how small, would be preserved.

She passed out plates loaded with her signature melt-away brisket crusted with the smoky candy of the fire, links she'd crafted in partnership with a sustainable ranch up near Point Reyes, butter-dipped smoked portobellos, and impossibly tender ribs smothered in her artisanal sauces. Her best sides were on display---cornbread, moist as pudding, from her mother's private recipe collection, beans and greens, peppery jicama slaw, and her signature hummingbird cake for dessert.

Isabel felt soft and yielding; her blouse felt soft. Everything about her seemed soft, and she smelled of dried flowers, rosemary, fresh baked bread. This whole kitchen seemed alive with a peculiar energy; in the old fixtures and furniture, Tess sensed a place where cooking and eating had happened for decades, where people gathered to sample life's sweetest pleasures.

a group of villagers in the highlands of Vietnam, he'd discovered the crash site of four U.S. soldiers who had gone missing fifty years before.

She was relieved at the conclusion when everyone seemed thrilled with the menu for the reception: tinker mackerel alla Santa Nicola, penne pasta with tomato, arugula and mozzarella, arancini, pizette, egg pasta with lobster and asparagus, Guinea hen with vegetables and a towering Italian cream cake.