“Strange the workings of the heart. One could go on for years, habituated to loss, reconciled to it, and then, in a moments unwary thought, the pain resurfaced, sharp and raw as a fresh wound.”

“Moral wounds have this peculiarity - they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.”

“Accepting the loss of a loved one is difficult. But reconciling with the living is just as important.”

“The pain over my heart returns, and from it I imagine tiny fissures spreading out into my body. Through my torso, down my arms and legs, over my face, leaving it crisscrossed with cracks. One good jolt...and I could shatter into strange razor-sharp shards.”

“Loss alone is but the wounding of a heart; it is memory that makes it our ruin.”

“I was going to rise, do some typing and coffee drinking in the kitchen all day since at that time work, work was my dominant thought, not love- not the pain which impels me to write this even while I don't want to, the pain which won't be eased by writing of this but heightened, but which will be redeemed, and if only it were a dignified pain and could be placed somewhere other than this black gutter of shame and loss and noisemaking folly in the night... /The Subterraneans”