“Grief ... gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn't seem worth starting anything. I can't settle down. I yawn, I fidget, I smoke too much. Up till this I always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness.”

“Nothing to smoke...nothing to drink...too much time to sit and think...that's why I read....mgc”

“It feels like I am wasting time. I mean, that's always the case. My life doesn't add up to anything.”

“For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?But if a spiral, am I going up or down it?How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, "I never realized my loss till this moment"? The same leg is cut off time after time.”

“Alison: I don't think I want anything more to do with love. Any more. I can't take it on. Cliff: You're too young to start giving up. Too young, and too lovely.”

“Once upon a time I would’ve leaped at the rare opportunity of curling up with Mom on the couch. But now it sort of felt like too little too late. I had someone else waiting for me.”