The Pearl Thief

That is a terrifically intimate thing, you know? Letting a stranger light your cigarette. Leaning forward so he can hold a flame to your lips. Pausing to breathe in before you pull back again.

I love the story of a thing. I love a thing for what it means a thousand times more than for what it's worth.

Her own hair was a glory of copper fire that morning, shining like a whisky still, long and loose in gentle flames down her back.

If you're scared, do something.

I need complicated railroad journeys and people speaking to me in foreign languages to keep me happy. I want to see the world and write stories about everything I see.

It is possible there are some things you want so badly that you will change your life to make them happen.

It makes you very uncomfortable to realize that your emotional attachment to something is an indulgence.

She gave a low and delighted chuckle. Her eyes were black as a moonless December night and reflected the electric lights like stars.

How do you ever hold on to anybody?

For the pleasure of giving, because what's the point of just having? If I give a thing, I remember how happy we both were when I made the gift.

Ellen looked around the room with an odd expression, for the first few seconds not taking in the collection spread across the tables, but just taking in the library: the smell of ink and foxy paper and old wood, the green view of the river beyond the leaded casement window propped open just an inch. As if she loved it, but was a little scared to be there.

It's like being raised by wolves -- you don't realize you're not one yourself until someone points it out to you. Sometimes it makes me so mad that not everyone treats me just like another wolf.

I realized I would be forced to run away from home if someone tried to arrange a marriage for me. I didn't want to think about it.

It's very modern. Very gamine. You look like a jazz singer.

Driving like a man is one of her few foibles.

I seem to be good at asking for trouble.

Och, they suit you, Queenie! Promise me you'll wear them.

Looking up at the stars and smoking in silence.

The wave of memory had submerged me for a whole minute, while I'd just sat staring and let it all come flooding back.

Inspector Milne's suspicious prying appeared to have awakened her inner Bolshevik, and so I discovered my own lady mother is not above quietly circumventing the law.

I ken who you are! You're Strathfearn's granddaughter. Julie Stuart, is it? Och, aye, Lady Julia! Well then, Lady Julia, tell me -- who don't you deserve a glass of water?