“The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.”

“After many trials the God and his love end happily—tho' not all remember this conclusion—which is less memorable than the moment when everything was lost. Happy endings are all alike; disasters may be unique.”

“This is love, she thought, isn't it? When you notice someone's absence and hate that absence more than anything? More, even, than you love his presence?”

“This endured absence is nothing more or less than forgetfulness. I am, intermittently, unfaithful. This is the condition of my survival.”

“Yet Clare's love was doubtless ethereal to a fault, imaginative to impracticability. With these natures, corporeal presence is sometimes less appealing than corporeal absence; the latter creating an ideal presence that conveniently drops the defects of the real.”

“A thousand for his love expired each day,And those who saw his face, in blank dismayWould rave and grieve and mourn their lives away-To die for love of that bewitching sightWas worth a hundred lives without his light.None could survive his absence patiently,None could endure this king's proximity-How strange it was that man could neither brookThe presence nor the absence of his look!”