“Over and over, all I had done was say, 'There, I've said it,' though it would leave me feeling only exposed, not unmasked.”

“I had an inheritance from my father,It was the moon and the sun.And though I roam all over the world,The spending of it’s never done.”

“I've fallen in love with him. I've done it. I've given him power over me.”

“If you asked me to marry you all over again today I'd say yes, said Valentine.And if I had only met you for the first time today, I'd ask.”

“Every morning I was renewed, though. Air and light healed me, over and over. I got to where I depended on it. When I was feeling my worst, I would step out into the yard and put my hands on the branches of the little redbud. It made me feel like I was saying a prayer, to do this. I know that sounds like foolishness, but that little tree was like an altar for me. I stood there in the cold of early winter, wishing for the redbud to bear leaves so that I might put my face against them.”

“if she had ordered me to throw myself down then, I would have done it! If she had said it only as a joke, said it with contempt, spitting on me--even then I would have jumped!”