Serendipities

I just came across this quote by François de La Rochefoucauld, a French nobleman of the 17th century, author of several collections of maxims: 

"True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen" 

Oddly, this quote is very similar to one from a main character in my novel, The Innocent, a 12th-century knight with a very similar surname: Cristien LaRoche. 

In the novel, Cristien talks about true love too. He says, “True love came, unlike the way it did in fairy tales, after a long time, years. It was a well-molded sword, tested and pounded, shaped and honed in the fires of passion and then plunged deep into the cool maw of reality until the flame was all but gone. It was the thing that survived the burning, that lived on after the war, honed and sharpened, true and unyielding, a thing of legend rare as Arthur’s sword. I had heard of it but never witnessed it.”

The universe is so cool and weird!

P.S. Yesterday, while driving around, I was thinking about the obstacles that can be created critics, those who have the power to make the path of a writer more difficult, when I stopped behind another vehicle. The license plate read "GATEKPR." Apropos, I thought. Today, I continued to contemplate the challenges of a writer's life, the difficulties of publishing and promoting, when I pulled up behind another vehicle with a vanity plate. This time, it read "NVRQUIT." Signs from the universe to keep doing what you love!

I know I'm not the only one, so dare to share some serendipitous happenings in your life in your comments.