“I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.”

“He often wondered whether it were possible to be more possessed bydesire for any other woman. The fact was that they functioned welltogether, and they had a connection as addictive as heroin.”

“So often I wonder whether it is my right to capitalize, as I feel, so often, on the grief of others. But then I justify, in my own particular thoughts, by feeling that I can contribute a little to the understanding of what others are going through; then there is reason for doing it.”

“I also liked to look around at the houses surrounding the park and wonder about the people who filled them, what kinds of marriages they had and how they loved or hurt each other on any given day, and if they were happy, and whether they thought happiness was a sustainable thing.”

“I am not proud of this moment. It is not one I share with others often, and rarely have I done so. It was hard to live through then. And it is difficult to walk through now, 22+ years later. But this is the moment that lay to rest every doubt about whether or not I had a “problem.”

“Eight years! you must be tenacious of life. I thought half the time in such a place would have done up any constitution! No wonder you have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face. When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet.”