“The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories in all literature.”

“A poem by Margot Bickel

A little peace
within the last hours of the almost bygone day
a little silence
between the days
so that the nascent yesterday does not get in the past
and tomorrow is lived for today”

Margot Bickel (1958) German poet

“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

“Borges said there are only four stories to tell: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power and the voyage. All of us writers rewrite these same stories ad infinitum.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

“All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

“How much of our literature, our political life, our friendships and love affairs, depend on being able to talk peacefully in a bar!”

John Wain (1925–1994) British writer

“It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn’t wait to leave.”

Anatole Broyard (1920–1990) American literary critic

“This story of loss and regaining of identity is, I think, the framework of all literature.(pg.18)”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

“So I rushed past the pretty girls, and the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

“All stories are love stories.”

Robert McLiam Wilson book Eureka Street