“A Parting GuestWhat delightful hosts are they—Life and Love!Lingeringly I turn away,This late hour, yet glad enoughThey have not withheld from meTheir high hospitality.So, with face lit with delightAnd all gratitude, I stayYet to press their hands and say,Thanks.—So fine a time! Good night.”

“I want to remember it all, the good times and the bad times, the late nights, the boozing, the dancing into dawns, and all the great and not-so-great people I met and loved in those years…”

“And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, these faces fade away. But one face, shining on me like a Heavenly light by which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond them all. And that remains.I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me.My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the dear presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company.O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward!”

“[about a book lent by a crush] Last night I read into the wee small hours. Fell asleep with my face in the book, my nose pressed up against the print. Could smell Sean on the pages, the lingering odours from his sportsbag. Man scent, liniment, damp earth.”

“Like all lawyers, I was delighted by gratitude. It happened so rarely.”

“I think it's important that we don't all have to hold our heads high all the time saying everything's fine.”