Quotes from Tracy Chevalier

I heard voices outside our front door - a woman's, bright as polished brass, and a man's, low and dark like the wood of the table I was working on. They were the kind of voices we heard rarely in our house. I could hear rich carpets in their voices, books and pearls and fur.

We say very little, for we do not need to. We are silent together, each in her own world, knowing the other is just at her back.

Jane Austen easily used half a page describing someone else's eyes; she would not appreciate summarizing her reading tastes in ten titles.

Over his shoulder I saw a star fall. It was me.

I wanted to wear the mantle and the pearls. I wanted to know the man who painted her like that.

I have spent my life waiting for something to happen,' she said. 'And I have come to understand that nothing will. Or it already has, and I blinked during that moment and it's gone. I don't know which is worse — to have missed it or to know there is nothing to miss.

Say something worth the words.

He spoke her name as though he held cinnamon in his mouth.

I could not think of anything but his fingers on my neck, his thumb on my lips.

It was not a house where secrets could be kept easily.

My father was often impatient during March, waiting for winter to end, the cold to ease, the sun to reappear. March was an unpredictable month, when it was never clear what might happen. Warm days raised hopes until ice and grey skies shut over the town again.

I did not mind the cold so much when he was there.

There followed a time when everything was dull. The things that had meant something lost importance, though they were still there, like bruises on the body that fade to hard lumps under the skin.

There is a difference between Catholic and Protestant attitudes to painting," he explained as he worked, "but it is not necessarily as great as you may think. Paintings may serve a spiritual purpose for Catholics, but remember too that Protestants see God everywhere, in everything. By painting everyday things-tables and chairs, bowls and pitchers, soldiers and maids-are they not celebrating God's creation as well?

I have a bed and enough to eat and kind people about me. God is still with me. For these things I am grateful and have no reason to complain

You know I don't listen to market gossip," she began, "but it is hard not to hear it when my daughter's name is mentioned.

He had decided to trust me.

I slowed my pace. Years of hauling water, wringing out clothes, scrubbing floors, emptying chamber pots, with no chance of beauty or color or light in my life, stretched before me like a landscape of flat land where, a long way off, the sea is visible but can never be reached.

So many (too many) books are published every year, and it seems everyone is writing a book. Perhaps we should all be reading more and writing less!

I didn't move. I've learned from years of experience that dogs and falcons and ladies come back to you if you stay where you are.

There was something different about her, though I could not say exactly what it was. It was as if she were more certain. If someone were sketching her they would use clear, strong lines, whereas before they might have used faint marks and more shading. She was like a fossil that's been cleaned and set so everyone can see what it is.

At first I could not meet his eyes. When I did it was like sitting close to a fire that suddenly blazes up.

I try to write 1,000 words a day - about three pages. When I reach 1,000 words I feel good. Less than that: a failure. More than that: tired.