“Perhaps we should do the learning - and learn not to communicate, or to do it in a different way. Now there is a thought. Perhaps we could learn your peace if we could share your silence.”

“She had never believed in fate. She still did not. It would be nonsense of freedom of will and choice, and it was through such freedom that we worked our way through life and learned what we needed to learn. But sometimes, it seemed to her, there was something, some sign, to nudge one along in a certain direction. What one chose to do with that nudge was up to that person.”

“That was the heart of the difference, she thought. In her world she had learned to be . Other people seemed to gain their sense of identity and worth from doing. ”

“We all learn to bury a broken heart beneath layers of dignity”

“Happy? Most of the time? Happiness is always a fleeting thing," he said, "It never rests upon anyone as a permanent state, though many of us persist in believing in the foolish idea that if this would just happen or that we would be happy for the rest of our lives. I know moments of happiness just as most other people do. Perhaps I have learned to find it in ways that would pass some people by. I feel the summer heat here at this moment and see the trees and the water and hear that invisible gull overhead. I feel the novelty of having company when I usually come here alone. And this moment brings me happiness.”

“Tis what marriage is all about, madam," he said. "Have you not realized it? 'Tis about discovering unknown facets of the character and experience and taste of one's spouse and learning to adjust one's life accordingly. 'Tis learning to hope that one's spouse is doing the same thing.”

“She was not sure that her deafness had strengthened her character. She was not even sure she had met a challenge. A silent world was as natural to her as a noisy one must be to them, she reflected. But people tended to assume that deaf persons could function as people only if they learned to conform to a world of sound. What about the challenge of silence? Very few people of hearing ever accepted it or even knew that there was a challenge there. People of hearing feared silence...”