“She imagined herself as some sort of vessel to be filled up with love. But it wasn't like that. The love was within her all the time, and its only renewal came from giving it away.”

“...so young, so lonely and naive, that she imagined herself as some sort of vessel to be filled up with love. But it wasn't like that. The love was within her all the time and its only renewal came from giving it away.”

“Oh the benison of it, she thought, for she seemed to need comfort now, not only because she was tired after the journey and far away from John, but because she had admitted to herself that she loved him, had let her love sweep over her like a kind of illness, 'giving in' to flu, conscious only of the present moment.”

“She understands suddenly that the stuff that fills her up is not the love or attention she might get from other people; it is the love she herself has for other people. We are, Portia decides, the people we love”

“to a woman all reformation, all salvation from any sort of ruin, and all moral renewal is included in love and can only show itself in that form.”

“She must first love herself and the, and only then, could she give her heart to another.”