Quotes from Elizabeth Kostova

It was strange, I reflected.. that even in the weirdest circumstances, the most troubling episodes of one's life, the greatest divides from home and familiarity, there were these moments of undeniable joy.

I wondered why she craved this knowledge and found myself remembering that she was, after all, an anthropologist.

It was not the brutality of what occurred next that changed my mind and brought home to me the full meaning of fear. It was the brilliance of it.

I've read there is no such thing as a single tear, that old poetic trope. And perhaps there isn't, since hers was simply a companion to my own.

In the end, I always act from the heart, even if I also value reason and tradition. I wish I could explain why, but I don't know.

The heart does not go backward. Only the mind.

He can't really love anyone, you know, and in the end such people are always alone, no matter how much other people once loved them.

then you must say to her, 'Madame, I observe that your heart is broken. Allow me to repair it for you...

I believe in walking out of a museum before the paintings you've seen begin to run together. How else can you carry anything away with you in your mind's eye?

Festina Lente (Hurry in slowly)

I've noticed Dracula was often as practical a fellow as he was a nasty one.

No book that is written for an external purpose is going to be a passionately felt book for the writer or the reader. I don't see the point in doing that.

For me, Dracula has always been associated with travel and beautiful historical places.

Every writer hopes his or her book will be its own thing.

For the first time, I had been struck by the excitement of the traveler who looks history in her subtle face.

Sometimes people damage paintings or sculpture because they love it. They throw their arms around a statue in a fit of hysterical passion and it falls over.

Bulgarians eat tarator every single day in summer. They think of it as salad although we'd call it a soup. You can make it as thick or thin as you like depending on how much water you add. It's very practical in summer because yogurt cools the body faster than water, but the water hydrates you.

I love to cook and I've cooked a lot of Bulgarian food over the years.

He can't really love anyone, you know, and in the end such people are always alone, no matter how much other people once loved them.

This time I felt my own face redden. Talking with this woman was like sitting still for a series of slaps, delivered arhythmically so you couldn't know when the next one was coming.

I think it's important to recognise that 'The Da Vinci Code' opened up a vast new audience for a general readership interested in historical detective stories and research into history.

It's funny; in this era of e-mail and voice mail and all those things that even I did not grow up with, a plain old paper letter takes on amazing intimacy.