Quotes from Talia Carner

Don't judge a home by its appearance, but by the warmth of its welcome.

If life is a party, you should be the one throwing it!

yourself into a sheep, and you'll meet a wolf nearby.

All this time she hadn't known that "blue" was actually seven distinct shades, each with its own names- azure, Prussian, cobalt, cerulean, sapphire, indigo, lapis. She pressed the waxy pencils on the paper, amazed by the emerging hues: the ornaments curving on the Armenian vase were lapis; the purplish contours of the Jerusalem mountains were shrouded by indigo evening clouds.

The warm winter day brought out the geckos to bathe in the sun, and the world looked pristine, as if a team of cherubim had polished the hewn stone on the houses and the red and blue anemones carpeting the dells. Past Mount Scopus, pinkish-brown mountains fringed the Judean desert. To the southeast, the tip of the Dead Sea, set deep in a valley, shimmered gray like Bathsheba's looking glass.

Low grass and green moss covered soil that, come summer, would turn arid and cracked. Cyclamens peeked out from under the shelter of rocks, pink and shy as brides. Along the path, tall stalks of purple brush-head flowers swayed in the breeze like a flock of hooded priests on the Via Dolorosa.

Then there are the words that the Song of Solomon provides a man. The enchanting words of courtship." She closed her eyes and, lips parted, began to chant. " How beautiful you are, my love, your eyes are doves.... Your lips are like a crimson thread, and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate.... Your neck is like the tower of David.... Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that feed among the lilies .

My beloved is all radiant and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousand. His head is the finest gold. His eyes are like doves beside springs of water.... His cheeks are like beds of spices yielding fragrance. His lips are lilies, distilling liquid myrrh. His arms are rounded gold, set with jewels. His body is ivory work, encrusted with sapphires.... This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem .

Hear, O Israel, Adonai, our God, Adonai, is one," her mother recited the Shema prayer before bed, then opened her eyes. "Remember, Batya. No matter where you are, say your prayer. It will protect you from demons that come during the night searching for innocent souls.