“She wondered that hope was so much harder then despair.”

“Bursts of hope make despair harder to live with.”

“For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.”

“The language of Cat's generation was far harder than that of her own, and more pithily correct: in their terms, he was a hunk. But why, she wondered, should anybody actually want a hunk, when non-hunks were so much more interesting?”

“Our common humanity, viewed realistically, can be as much a source of despair as hope.”

“Hope is a terrible thing, she said. Is it? Yes, it keep you living in another place, a place which doesn't exist. For some people it's better than where they are. For many it's a relief. From life, she said. A relief from life? Is that living? Some people don't have a choice. No and that's awful for them. Hope is better than misery, he said. Or despair. Hope belongs in the same box as despair. Hope is not so bad, he said. At least despair has truth to it. ”