If you can capture a woman's imagination, then you will have her. But imagination is a strange creature. It needs time and distance to function properly.

…secondhand bookstores have pilgrims. The words out of print are a call to arms for those who seek a Holy Grail made of paper and ink.

Too much reading is a bad habit. No one likes a girl who squints.

Sis took Eva to the public library and showed her how to get a card. Every week, Eva read her way through the works of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Anthony Trollope, Henry James and Elizabeth Gaskell. She dreamed of heroines from modest backgrounds attracting unprecedented attentions, soaring tales of love across social divides and sudden unexpected reversals of fortunes. In these pages, anything was possible, even for a girl like her.

You see, the truth is no one ever really falls in love with anyone but themselves. Love is a mirror; a reflective surface projecting who we wish we were. What we've all waiting for is someone to come along who will show us something new about ourselves that we can adore. And then, because someone loves us, in turn, we love ourselves. Does that make sense?

She inhaled again. 'You made it rain,' she said softly, delighted. 'Everyone needs a respite from the sun.

Please tell me it's going to rain today, Francois.''Ah!' he smiled. (This was obviously familiar territory.) 'I regret to inform you that the forecast calls for nothing but sunshine.''Relentless sunshine,' she corrected him.

Very few of us relate to what it's like to be a hero. But everyone understands what it's like to fail.

She tore off a piece of baguette; it was both crusty and soft, still warm in the centre. It was amazing how something so simple, so basic could be this delicious.

The warm humid air of New York clung to the night, unwilling to relinquish its suffocating hold. And yet to Eva, the city had an underlying hum of possibility; a constant forward motion that promised, no matter what, that change was on its way.