Quotes from N.M. Kelby

The human heart is a wild and bruised beast and often acts accordingly.

Her heart beat with the rattle of broken wings.

And he was forever hers. No matter whom he loved, or was loved by, the shadow of her always remained.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember the taste of snow apples. When he was a child, there was a gnarled tree of them behind his father's blacksmith shop. His mother would always pick them but there were never enough for more than a single tart. Spicy and yet sweet, like McIntosh, but the flesh was so impossibly white, pristine, and the juice was so abundant, that it was like no other apple he had ever tasted.

A well-told story, true or not, reminds you that, yes, the world is an exotic and magical place, and yes, it can be yours for a price. Enchantment always has a price--and sometimes the cost is love.

When a writer puts words on paper, it is an intimate act. The reader hears your words in his voice and he becomes the bones of your story. The reader is the foundation that you wrap in muscle and sinew. You build the hero on the reader's delicate frame until your story is his story. Your sorrow is his; your joy is a communion you both celebrate.

That odd alchemy of married love - passion, betrayal, fury, kindness, and companionship - lay there exposed between them.

Close your eyes, he had said to her. Food demands complete submission. And then he placed a perfect scallop in her mouth. Do you taste the sea? Delphine did. Not just the salt of the sea but the very air of the moment that the shell was pulled from the sand. A storm, perhaps. There is a dark edge to the sweetness of the meat.

No kitchen is complete without veal stock. Do you have veal stock in this kitchen? Does your neighbor? It is the foundation of all sauces. It adds a complexity. Deliciousness. Has Escoffier not told you of this theory of five tastes? A Japanese chemist proved it, and called it 'umami,' which means deliciousness.

From the darkest beluga to the golden almas, creamy and subtle, to the osetra, with its hint of walnuts and cream, to the small gray eggs of the sevruga, with its overwhelming flavor of the sea, Escoffier fed Sarah a universe of moons. And she, in turn, met each kiss that was deeper than the last.