“Helen hadn't realized how heavy the burden of hate had been until she was allowed to put it down.”

“I had never been the receptacle of someone's hope, and found this weightless thing to be a heavy burden.”

“She had no experience of crushing on someone like that. She hadn't realized before how frightening it was to look a dream in the face. To realize how much it could change you live, and how much it could demand of you.”

“all this pain. all this crying. it wasn't that she hadn't expected it. she just underestimated it. it felt like a heavy, dark blanket that had been pulled across all of them. she hadn't know that it would make it difficult to breathe. she hadn't guess that it would seem so enveloping. and so total, and so permanent. ”

“She wasn't ready to settle down, she told her friends. That was one way of putting it. Another was would have been that she had not found anyone to settle down with. There had been several men in her life, but they hadn't been convincing. They'd been somewhat like her table - quickly acquired, brightened up a little, but temporary. The time for that kind of thing was running out, however. She was tired of renting.”

“The freedom of saying anything to him, telling all, relieved a burden I hadn't even realized I'd been carrying. In my relentless push to keep moving forward, there had been so many emotions I hadn't let myself inhabit fully, so many things I hadn't talked about. Now I couldn't quite catch up to myself.”