“It’s just life. You can’t beat life.”

“Things have changed, of course. There are counsellors at the ready. Kindness and understanding. Life is harder for some, we're told. Not their fault, even if the blows are purely imaginary. Felt just as keenly by the recipient, or the non recipient, as the case may be.But good use can be made of everything, if you are willing.”

“I despised their antics because I took life seriously and had a much more lofty and tender notion of romance. But I would have liked to get their attention just the same. ”

“Life would be grand if it weren't for the people.”

“He never wanted to be away from her. She had the spark of life. ”

“Row, row, row your boatGently down the stream.Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,Life is but a dream.I lie in bed beside my little sister, listening to the singing in the yard. Life is transformed, by these voices, by these presences, by their high spirits and grand esteem, for themselves and each other. My parents, all of us, are on holiday. The mixture of voices and words is so complicated and varied it seems that such confusion, such jolly rivalry, will go on forever, and then to my surprise—for I am surprised, even though I know the pattern of rounds—the song is thinning out, you can hear the two voices striving.Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,Life is but a dream.Then the one voice alone, one of them singing on, gamely, to the finish. One voice in which there is an unexpected note of entreaty, of warning, as it hangs the five separate words on the air. Life is. Wait. But a. Now, wait. Dream.”

“If I decided to send this to you, where would I send it? When I think of writing the whole address on the envelope I am paralyzed. It's too painful to think of you in the same place with your life going on in the same way, minus me. And to think of you not there, you somewhere else but I don't know where that is, is worse.”