“How acutely sometimes the presence or absence of people mattered”
“Like a missing tooth, sometimes an absence is more noticeable than a presence.”
“How strange it was that man could neither brookThe presence nor the absence of his look!”
“Many people believe that evil is the presence of something. I think it's the absence of something.”
“Yet Clare's love was doubtless ethereal to a fault, imaginative to impracticability. With these natures, corporeal presence is sometimes less appealing than corporeal absence; the latter creating an ideal presence that conveniently drops the defects of the real.”
“No matter how much and how often - 'things' will never compensate for loss or absence...no matter how guilty a parent feels.”