“Her beauty had not blinded him to her shortcomings, but perhaps it had to her virtues”
“Be to her virtues very kind, Be to her faults a little blind.”
“They had lied, those who had extolled the virtues of love—its pleasures, its sublimity—those who had told her that it was beautiful and worthwhile.There was nothing beautiful about it.It was awful.”
“In old age her voice had become thin as a bird's, but her reading was still beautiful to him.”
“He just wanted to hold her to him and tell her it would be okay, that she had survived and was beautiful.”
“Lucy had to guard her reputation - her reputation for sanity - the way that a woman a hundred years before would have had to guard her reputation for virtue.”