Quotes from Belinda Alexandra

I knew what it was like to be poor, and that once you had become rich, anything was better than being poor again.

Grief is beautiful?' She thought it was the most dreadful feeling possible. At best she viewed the world through a haze, and at worst everything looked black. 'It means you've loved another with all your heart,' Luka said. 'What's the use of being alive if you've never loved like that, not even once?

I remembered my conversation with Myles Dunphy when I agreed to join him in the fight to save the blue gum forest. 'Opportunities are made, Mrs Rockcliffe,' he had said. 'They don't happen of themselves. I don't want to read about the achievements of people with verve. I want to be one of those people myself. It's not enough to be intelligent and thoughtful. You have to be bold.

The patina is the history of an object and shows what has happened over time. A cracked finish, a nick, a scratch - all these things give a piece character. The patina is what makes the piece truly valuable.

People hurt others all the time, even when they loved them. Especially when they loved them. It was usually because they were in pain themselves.

You know that life is a cycle, don't you, my sweetheart?' she said. 'All things are born, and all things die. Other people are afraid of that, but you must never be. If you accept it, life will always be beautiful for you, even when it is sorrowful.

I want you, Rosa,' Antonio said, turning to her. 'I want you with your scars and your suffering. You are my wife and everything that has happened to you only makes you more precious to me.

peace on a world scale is determined by each of us creating peace in our own hearts and minds first, and doing our best to live in harmony with the people and other living creatures around us. When we can each do that, I believe together we will then become a force powerful enough to create positive change on a scale never before conceived.

Perhaps there were certain kinds of pain that remained raw forever.

There was a saying in Provence: "Those foolish enough to keep a snake as a companion will get bitten sooner or later".

All my life precious people had come and gone and I was learning not to cling to anyone anymore. p273

No one misses out on the hardness of life. Everyone just tries to find what happiness and beauty they can. p343

I realise there was little we could say to each other that wouldn't inflict some sort of pain. ... It was easier for people living in the aftermath to ask nothing rather than trespassing on each other's fragile memories. p240