Urmila

“We think we can make honey without sharing in the fate of bees, but we are in truth nothing but poor bees, destined to accomplish our task and then die.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“We musn't forget old people with their rotten bodies, old people who are so close to death, something that young people don't want to think about. We musn't forget that our bodies decline, friends die, everyone forgets about us, and the end is solitude. Nor must we forget that these old people were young once, that a lifespan is pathetically short, that one day you're twenty and the next day you're eighty.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“I couldn't fit my whole self into a marriage, no matter who my husband was. There were parts of me that John liked, and different parts for the others, but no one could deal with all of me, So I'd lop some part off, but then I'd start missing it, wanting it back.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“When someone that you love dies..it's like fireworks suddenly burning out in the sky and everything going black.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog