“For a man’s life would become intolerable, if he knew what was going to happen to him. He would be made aware of future evils, and would suffer their agonies in advance, while he would get no joy of present blessings since he would know how they would end. Ignorance is the necessary condition of human happiness, and it has to be admitted that on the whole mankind observes that condition well. We are almost entirely ignorant of ourselves; absolutely of others. In ignorance, we find our bliss; in illusions, our happiness.”

“You would throw away all that we have given you for a man’s love?”“Not a man’s love,” I say softly. “But Duval’s. And I would find a way to serve both my god and my heart. Surely He does not give us hearts so we may spend our lives ignoring them.”

“Scott told me about the Riviera and how my wife and I must come there' the next summer and how we would go there and how he would find a place for us that was not expensive and we would both work hard every day and swim and lie on the beach and be brown and only have a single aperitif before lunch and one before dinner. Zelda. would be happy there, he said. She loved to swim and was a beautiful diver and she was happy with that life and would want him to work and everything would be disciplined. He and Zelda. and their daughter were going to go there that summer. I was trying to get him to write his stories as well as he could and not trick them to conform to any formula, as he had explained that he did.”

“The importance of our connection, what it meant to find each other again, the way it made what happened to us and between us not be a waste, not be for nothing. He would know, he had to know, that not saying good-bye would be the worst end of all.”

“Hers was the perfect love that dwells on the other's happiness, and not on its own. She knew that, though for the time being he would find bliss and oblivion in her arms, he would soon repine in inactivity whilst others fought for that which he held sublime.”

“We all have value and the right to find as much peace with ourselves and our flaws and weaknesses as possible. Why would forgiveness be so important to God if we didn't need it all the time? He knew we would need it from Him, but also from us for ourselves and for others. When we get peace with our weakest areas, we'll find new ways to build on our strongest areas.”