“Humans, I finally decided after a few more minutes of watching him, are paradoxically capable of both unattainable depths of kindness and unimaginable depths of cruelty, sometimes within the same body...”

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

“I sometimes think that animals are incapable of the kinds of cruelty that humans willingly inflict on each other.”

“I got the sense that he was the kind of person who couldn't hold anger for more than a few minutes, because it just wasn't in him. It could never grow into resentment or bitterness, and I knew then that he was the kind of man who would be married forever. And I decided then and there that I should be the one to marry him.”

“When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

“The depth of my love for him, of my need for him poured over me, both painful and sweet, both comforting and frightening. If anything happened to him, I didn't know how I would keep going.”