The Book of Magic

Some stories begin at the beginning and others begin at the end, but all the best stories begin in a library.

Read as many books as you can. Choose courage over caution. Take time to visit libraries. Look for light in the darkness. Have faith in yourself. Know that love is what matters most.

Once, a long time ago, before we knew who we were, we thought we wanted to be like everyone else. How lucky to be exactly who we were.

What you wind up regretting aren’t the things you do, it’s what you don’t do that you will never forgive yourself for.

Choose courage over caution. Take time to visit libraries. Look for light in the darkness. Have faith in yourself. Know that love is what matters

When you have a sister, someone knows the story of who you were and who you would always be.

Life all happened so quickly; people tell you it will, but you won’t believe it until it happens to you. Cry all you want, being young will slip through your hands and you will be left standing there, you who were once so young, not recognizing yourself or your life.

Seeing has little to do with opening your eyes; it’s what you feel inside that counts, it’s what you know without anyone telling you.

you must be yourself no matter what; anything else was a lie, and a denial of who you were would always cause grief. What you put out into the world came back to you threefold. If you could not accept yourself, you would be reviled and cast out, adrift in the world.

This is what love was, you stayed when you wanted to run away. You held on when you knew you had no choice but to let go.

Time is out there. Everything that ever happened is still happening. For instance, if I took your hand in mine.” Which he did as he was speaking. “It would be happening for hundreds of years.

Who can you trust if not your sister? Who knows your story better than she? If you saw one Owens sister at the grocery, the other would be right beside her. If one was working in the garden, making certain the rows of herbs were weeded, her sister would be there as well, carrying a basket to collect the dandelion greens.

How lucky they’d been to be raised by women who taught them what was most important in this world. Read as many books as you can. Choose courage over caution. Take time to visit libraries. Look for light in the darkness. Have faith in yourself. Know that love is what matters most.

You could live a little or you could live a lot.

Women here in Massachusetts had been drowned and beaten and hanged, especially if they were found to have access to books other than the Bible, for the Puritans had been convinced that they alone had the ear of God.

crows were more intelligent than most men, and more loyal, and that you could not choose them, they must choose you, they must come to you and once they did they would never leave you, at least not of their own accord.

He felt like an addict, out of control, unable to stop himself from taking what he imagined he was entitled to, not yet understanding that no one is entitled to anything other than his freedom and the choices he makes.

Now Franny understood that you must be yourself no matter what; anything else was a lie, and a denial of who you were would always cause grief. What you put out into the world came back to you threefold. If you could not accept yourself, you would be reviled and cast out, adrift in the world.

Life was like a book, Jet thought, but one you would never finish. You would never know how people would wind up; the good often suffered and the wicked prospered and there was no explanation for the way in which fate was meted out as there was in novels.

Language was everything. Trust was for fools. Love came and went. Words could be stolen.

You didn't have to be cursed in love to know that when you loved someone you were open to great loss.

a quotation that had been her favorite, written by the poet she most admired. Unable are the Loved to die For Love is Immortality. Unbeknownst to Jet, Franny had added another line beneath her sister’s name. Beloved by all.

Sally had returned to school for her degree in library science at Simmons University, and now, at the age of forty-four, she was the director of the Owens Library.

others begin at the end, but all the best stories begin in a library.

Be a forthright woman and all hell could break loose.