The Night Is A Strawberry.

The Women In The Room Chatted About Love, About Childhood, About Losing Parents, About Mr. Spock, About Good Books They'd Read. They Mothered Each Other.

Few Things Are Better In The World Than A Room Full Of Librarians. I Consider Them Literary Heroes. The Keepers And Defenders Of The Written Word.

To Be Silent. In Hopes Of Not Offending, In Hopes Of Being Accepted. But What Happened To People Who Never Spoke, Never Raised Their Voices? Kept Everything Inside? Gamache Knew What Happened. Everything They Swallowed, Every Word, Thought, Feeling Rattled Around Inside, Hollowing The Person Out. And Into That Chasm They Stuffed Their Words, Their Rage.

After Spending Most Of Her Life Scanning The Horizon For Slights And Threats, Genuine And Imagined, She Knew The Real Threat To Her Happiness Came Not From The Dot In The Distance, But From Looking For It. Expecting It. Waiting For It. And In Some Cases, Creating It. Her Father Had Jokingly Accused Her Of Living In The Wreckage Of Her Future. Until One Day She'd Looked Deep Into His Eyes And Saw He Wasn't Joking. He Was Warning Her.

I'm Just Like This. I Have No Talent For Choosing My Battles. Life Seems, Strangely, Like A Battle To Me. The Whole Thing.