Someone told me much later that you always know the people who are going to make a difference in your life, from the very first time you set eyes on them, even if you do not like them at all. And I ha...
So if we could not have love, my husband and I, then at least I could have alchemy.
She has never liked sleeping alone. Even as a small child, she would steel herself to brave the black soup of the room as far as her brother’s bed, creeping in beside him. And he, who when awake would...
Obsessed? I don't know what the word means. I know there were times when I couldn't think of anything else. I used to stay in every weeknight in the hope that he might get free and call me. It felt li...
It was so cold. In the monastery. Sometimes the wind came from the sea with ice in it... It could freeze the skin off your face. Once the snow was so deep we couldn't get out of the doors to the woods...
I listen to people talking sometimes, that great river that is language, with all its undercurrents of grammar and nuance, and I wonder how we all learn so quickly to speak it, given that we begin whe...
I know what she is thinking. That she will never have those feelings. And she wants to have them. Oh, how much she wants to...I have seen it before, the way women yearn more for a child when they have...
Cesare Borgia—oh, Cesare Borgia has proved himself a great warrior.
As the last chimes die away, a series of contorted male shrieks rise up from somewhere nearby; a late coupling between the sheets or a few early knife thrusts into a belly? He smiles. Such are the sou...
There is a kind of comfort to be gained from the passing of time, hour upon hour, day upon day, time falling like thick flakes of snow, the next laid upon the last, again and again, until what has bee...
Beauty is your gift from God and it should be used and not squandered. Study this face as if it were a map of the ocean, your own trade route to the Indies. For it will bring you its own fortune. But...
There have been none like us before. And there will be none afterwards. Be careful what you write.
Outside, the city is changing. While we have been talking of God's laws and seacrets of the earth, a cold fog has come rolling off the sea, pushing through the allys, sliding over the water, rubbing u...
Everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted And she had tried, truly and honestly, tried so hard that sometimes, despite the nun’s kindness and patie...
Either you’re standing under your haloes, eyes up to heaven, or you’re munching apples in their faces and flashing your bush. I’m not even sure they know which one they prefer. The best you can do is...
No one bothered dressing up in priests’ robes, for even in chaos hierarchy rules and their cloth wasn’t rich enough.
She is only a young woman who did not want to become a nun. The world is full of them.