"There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and do..."
- Colleen McCullough
"Belief doesn't rest on proof or existence...it rests on faith...without faith there is nothing."
"Suddenly the thought that the end of her life was imminent shocked him; it was one thing to pity someone he didn't know, quite another to face the same dilemma with someone he knew intimately. That wa..."
"He owe his wife a debt he couldn't hope to pay with any coin save one: open the cage and let the bird fly."
"He hadn't wooed her, but had simply claimed her. A gold mine ready to dig. There should have been a period of quiet dinners together, of flowers rather than diamonds, of kisses given after permission ..."
"Do you realize that you've been married to me for just about half of your entire life?"Her head came down, her eyes opened wide to stare at him. "Is that all?" she asked. "It seems an eternity"."Did I..."
"We are not here together just to make children, Elizabeth. What we're going to do is sanctified by marriage. It's an act of love - of love. Not merely of the flesh, but of the mind and even the soul. ..."
"Dr. Murray made it clear to me before I left that a woman who enhoys the Act is as loose as a harlot. God gives pleasure in it only to husbands. Women are the source of evil and temptation, therefore ..."
"I have discovered," he said to Charles Dewy, "that when a man marries, peace of mind and freedom go out of the window.""Well, old boy," said Charles comfortably, "that's the price we have to pay for h..."
"But work used to be the lot of every man, and now it is rapidly becoming an aristocratic privilege. Men nowadays are more often paid not to work."