Quotes from Sara Donati

I have loved the stars too well to fear the night. ---Elizabeth Middleton Bonner

She wore her determination like war paint.

When it's right it's never too late, when it's wrong it's always too soon

Over the village of Paradise lightning jumped from cloud to cloud and then it put down long legs and walked the earth.

If this went on much longer, Mary Augustin told herself, her brain would be riddled with question marks, hundreds of little hooks set so deep they'd never let go.

subject for discussion. What terrible messes we get ourselves into when we are silly enough to fall in love

Those who think themselves to be civilized are not always particularly intelligent, or rational.

Little girls are kept away from the things that would make them strong, in the name of protection and propriety.

The more she thought about it, the more confused she became: each of them told the story with complete conviction. In the end, she thought, perhaps they were all right. The stories of what had happened to each of them in those bloody days of the revolution were a web they wove together; the truth scuttled back and forth between the delicate strands of memory, and could not be pinned down.

Very slowly Elizabeth leaned forward until her forehead rested on his shoulder, shuddering with pleasure and relief at the feel of him, at his smell.

No, I'm saying that you have got to look and think symptom, not disease. If she's a symptom, then ask, where is the disease?

A hole ain't nothing either, but you can still break your neck in it.

Give children a clock to live by," Mrs. Lee said. "So they know what's coming, when it's coming, how long it will last. They'll take comfort in that knowing.

No one ever does anything our of charity," Anna went on. "Every choice we make benefits ourselves directly or indirectly. Even if it looks like a sacrifice, the alternative would be unbearable in some way. If I hadn't helped I wouldn't sleep well , and I need my sleep.

And I knew it was her, the one I thought I'd never find. A strong woman, a smart, beautiful, uncompromising woman, and sure of her place in the world.

Women who did not adhere to the ideals of the time, whose interests and behaviors were considered abnormal and unnatural, were sometimes committed to hospitals and asylums, and in extreme cases they were subjected to castration and female circumcision.

Caught in the gloaming, suspended in the gilded hour, she saw herself in a landscape of years stretching into a horizon she had never dared imagine for herself.

When will you stop thinking of yourself as a burden?

Young people today (finally, I'm old enough to use that cliché) seem to have no real conception of how bad things were for women and, more important, could be again.

There was nothing predictable in this life, and very little that was fair. •

Casual cruelty and callous indifference could destroy a woman as effectively as fists.

There's no need to whisper," Elizabeth told her now. "You could sing at the top of your voices and no one would hear you out here on the water." But the women smiled at her suggestion in surprise and unease, as if she had told them that they could fly.

Great Spirit who gave us the darkness in which to rest. In that darkness we send our words to you.' 

Each day is unique and precious, a coin to be spent thoughtfully. Waste nothing and your regrets will be few. The young cannot imagine death and for that reason they fear it. I am not afraid of death. I greet it as anyone who has a long and satisfying day's work behind them greets sleep. I have loved the stars too well to fear the night.