“New Orleans - 1866. I had few pleasures to call my own. There was the peace found in the attic where I was made to board, the transporting comfort of the books in Mrs. Harper’s library, the deliciousness of the sweet bread I purchased with my allowance from the bakery down the road each Sunday of rest. But all of it paled in comparison to the joy brought upon me by Oliver, the terrier I considered my own.”

“Thursday, December 27th, eleven p.m. Kuldesh Sharma hopes he’s in the right place. He parks up at the end of the dirt track, hemmed in on all sides by trees, ghoulish in the darkness. He had finally made up his mind at about four this afternoon, sitting in the back room of his shop. The box was sitting on the table in front of him. He made two phone calls, and now here he is."

On a recent trip, I listened to the audiobook of Chris Bohjalian’s civil war novel The Jackal’s Mistress. Based on a real-life story, it presents an interesting dilemma... How much would you risk to help a wounded enemy?

“Sybil is a mother and grandmother, divorced, retired from a distinguished career in law, these things are all there around her. On Monday around ten or half past Sybil Van Antwerp sits down at her desk again. It is the correspondence that is her manner of living.”

“On February 19, 1963, a troublesome, imperfect, controversial woman named Betty Friedan published a troublesome, imperfect, controversial book titled “The Feminine Mystique.” The book didn’t solve the problem. But it did put a name to it, shining a light that helped women who felt isolated and powerless find one another, and their voices.”

“A sleek black motorcar was edging its way through the crowds of passengers going toward the boat. It stopped when it was still a good ten yards away from her, and a woman got out at the passenger side with a canvas bag in her hand and a bundle in a blanket in the crook of her other arm. She was not young, sixty if she was a day.”

“Bethany Waites understands there is no going back now. Time to be brave, and to see how this all plays out. She weighs the bullet in her hand. Life is about understanding opportunities. Understanding how rarely they come along, and then rising to meet them when they do."

“There’s an old saying about stories, and how there are always three versions of them: yours, mine and the truth. The guy who first said it worked in the film business, but it holds true for journalism too. We’re not really supposed to take sides. We’re supposed to deal in facts: Facts add up to truth.”

“A human life improved by a dog isn’t just a theoretical concept. It’s a real life event that happens a million times a day, all over the world.”

“Volterra. The ninth of April, 1478. They put her little brother in a cage. Her brother, who wasn’t so little anymore, but because Ravenna Maffei was older, she would always think of him that way."