“I had got away from what I hated, but I hadn’t found where I loved, and so I pretended that there was nowhere to love.”

“I loved them, and would always love them. But there was no place where they could fit anymore, so I had nowhere to put all the things I felt. I didn't know what to do with them, and they didn't know what to do with me, and isn't that just like life?”

“I acquired expensive habits and affected manners. I got a third-class degree and a first-class illusion: that I was a poet. But nothing could have been less poetic that my seeing-through-all boredom with life in general and with making a living in particular. I was too green to know that all cynicism masks a failure to cope-- an impotence, in short; and that to despise all effort is the greatest effort of all. But I did absorb a small dose of one permanently useful thing, Oxford's greatest gift to civilized life: Socratic honesty. It showed me, very intermittently, that it is not enough to revolt against one's past. One day I was outrageously bitter among some friends about the Army; back in my own rooms later it suddenly struck me that just because I said with impunity things that would have apoplexed my dead father, I was still no less under his influence. The truth was I was not a cynic by nature, only by revolt. I had got away from what I hated, but I hadn't found where I loved, and so I pretended that there was nowhere to love. Handsomely equipped to fail, I went out into the world.”

“When I was young, I loved summer and hated winter. When I got older I loved winter and hated summer. Now that I’m even older, and wiser, I hate both summer and winter.”

“I found it when I came to understand that I had to practice unconditional love, patience, and acceptance first before I could expect that from any partner. I had to become the person that I wanted to fall in love with.”

“As I lay next to his bare skin, seeing the unconditional love in his eyes, I let go of my disappointment, and my anger, and my stubborn resolve. I loved him, and no matter what my reasons were to live without him, I knew it wasn’t what I wanted. Even if I hadn’t changed my mind, it was impossible for us to stay away from each other.”