“Love and LoyaltyIf ever men and women are their simplest, sincerest selves, it is when suffering softens the one, and sympathy strengthens the other.”

“Men and men, men and women, whatever the permutation, in the end one partner usually feels more than the other and that partner usually suffers for it.”

“Our love grows soft if it is not strengthened by truth, and our truth grows hard if it is not softened by love.”

“If literature has engaged me as a project, first as a reader, then as a writer, it is as an extension of my sympathies to other selves, other domains, other dreams, other territories.”

“We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all.”

“But of course, she remembered, that was why women were so wonderful; it was their love and imagination that transformed these unremarkable beings. For most men, when one came to think of it, were undistinguished to look at, if not positively ugly. Fabian was an exception, and perhaps love affairs with handsome men tended to be less stable because so much less sympathy and imagination were needed on the woman's part?”