East of the Sun

She had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, like when you're swimming and you want to put your feet down on something solid, but the water's deeper than you think and there's nothing there

One of the the things she most liked about the city -apart from all its obvious attractions, the theatre, the galleries, the exhilarating walks by the river- was that so few people ever asked you personal questions.

If you were lucky, very lucky indeed, there were one or two people in your life who you could tell the unvarnished truth too, shell and egg. And that these people held the essence of you inside them. The rest would be conversations that ended when night fell, or the dinner part ended.

Estou sempre a fazer isto com as pessoas. Ponho-as de parte antes de as conhecer, ou acho que a simpatia, um certo tipo de abertura, é uma forma de fraqueza

Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto

He’d told her how orphaned birds would sometimes accept the most pathetic substitutes for their mothers—a pullover, a hot-water bottle, an armpit, or even a paper airplane—anything rather than nothing, but preferably something that moved.

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy