“She taught me,' said Ta-thea, 'that if you do not have couragem all other virtues may be lost, because you cannot keep even love if you are not prepared to fight for it, to endure the hurt it brings, and hold on, no matter the cost.”

“Too many women waste their lives grieving because they do not have something other people tell them they should want. Whether you are happy or not depends to some degree upon outward circumstances, but mostly it depends how you choose to look at things yourself, whether you measure what you have or what you have not.”

“Sometimes we bring to a struggle or cause the gifts we see most clearly, a courage, a strength, or a charm others have told us we have. But often we find more is asked of us than that, more than we intended or thought we possessed. We are asked to offer that which we thought dearest, to forgive what seemed unpardonable, to face what we feared the most and endure it. Sometimes we have to travel to the last step a path that was not of our own choosing. But I promise you this ... it will lead to a greater joy in the end. The difficulty is that the end is beyond our sight, it is a matter of faith, not of knowledge.”

“Be aware that you can truly help people only by aiding them to become what they are, not what you are. I have heard you say 'If I were you, I would do this, or that.' 'I' am never 'you'--and my solutions may not be yours.”

“Love is brave and generous and above all it springs from honor. In order to love someone else, you must first be true to yourself. Love is not two people wanting or needing what the other can give.--Hester Latterly”

“Page 134 Florence Nightengale is speaking to William MonkOf course. If you know the truth, it takes a gentler and perhaps a wiser woman than Purdence Barrymore not to speak it aloud. She did not understand the arts of diplomacy. I fear that perhaps I do not either. The sick cannot wait for flattery and coercion to do their work.”

“The men who cannot laugh at themselves frighten me even more than those who laugh at everything.”