Belinda Jeffrey quotes:

When I was young I wanted so much to be like her. What a blessing are those moments when there is nothing to worry about, no thought of trouble or grief in the world.

If there was some way of knowing which boys were likely to turn out to be decent men, boys that could love us back as passionately as we felt we could love them, then we could banish the likelihood of divorce and unhappiness to a statistically unlikely outcome.

Her smile could wash away a thousand doubts as soon as light up a room.

Life is about taking what's given to us and creating something wonderful.

I was thinking how complicated life is and how there are no simple roads or paths. We are a fabric of mistakes and hurts; a family tree of fumbled attempts, successes and failures.

I've yet to find the exact word to describe the enjoyment that an evening spent riffling through old pattern books can bring.

But sometimes I wanted to feel like a child, to know that he would stand in front of me while waves crashed towards us or arrows come at us.

I sometimes think that animals are incapable of the kinds of cruelty that humans willingly inflict on each other.

Maybe attraction was aligned in heaven before our birth because there was no other way to explain my feelings. There were millions of boys on the earth. Why did it feel so strong?

I could feel their grief as if it were a beast holding us down.