“The suffering of a loved one was in many ways worse than one's one suffering because it left one feeling so very helpless.”

“The people we love are usually stronger than we give them credit for. It is the nature of love, perhaps, to want to shoulder all the pain rather than see the loved one suffer. But sometimes pain is better than emptiness. I have been so empty Kit. All my life. So full of emptiness. That is strange paradox is nit not - full of emptiness?”

“Life was very sad if there were not - and unbearably so if one's experience with romantic love turned one into an incurable cynic.”

“When one had once suffered a great hurt, there was always a weakness afterward, a vulnerability where there had been wholeness and strength before - and innocence.”

“There is nothing worse, is there," she said, "than a past that has never been fully dealt with. One can convince oneself, that it is all safely in the past and forgotten about, but the very fact that we can tell ourselves that it is forgotten proves that it is not.”

“But if one had everything one could ever need or want, what was left to dream of?”

“One cannot try marriage. Once one is in, there is no way out.”