"It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don't know everything."

"She was made for untidy rooms and rumpled beds."

"We all know that it is women who make the decisions, but we have to let men think that the decisions are theirs. It is an act of kindness on the part of women."

"The telling of a story, like virtually everything in this life, was always made all the easier by a cup of tea."

"That of all people, it should be him; that took her aback. That the heart should settle on somebody like him; that surprised her. But she was so certain about it, so certain."

"Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself."

"Do not act meanly, do not be unkind, because the time for setting things right may pass before your heart changes course. Isabel Dalhousie"

"A life without stories would be no life at all. And stories bound us, did they not, one to another, the living to the dead, people to animals, people to the land?"

"But don't we often lie to people we love, or not tell them things, precisely because we love them?"