“Grandmother was like an opal. You could never be sure which colors were really there and which were just tricks of the light.”

“After all, that's why we read historical fiction-to be transported to another time, and to be astonished at ancient people's lives and traditions, just as they would probably be astonished at ours.”

“I'd always thought I would feel like an animal released from its cage when my student days were finished, I felt more like a bird that had been pushed from its nest and told it must fly.”

“Nothing is forever...nothing lasts.”

“Look at Rose Bertin. From an ordinary seamstress to the milliner”

“such a short time. I am about to tell our barker,”

“customers away. The Palais-Royal has become a veritable den of iniquity,”

“our countrymen are starving, she is decorating herself with diamond aigrettes!”

“Grandmother was like an opal. You could never be sure which colors were really there and which were just tricks of the light.”

“We've all done things we'd rather keep in the dark. It's only by shedding light on them that our demons can disappear.”

“When a storm comes, bamboo bends. It doesn't break.”