“But life, if nothing else, had taught her promises weren't always to be counted on, and what appeared at first a shining chance might end in bitter disappointment.”

“Life is always uncertain,'he said with a shrug. 'We cannot let the fear of what might happen stop us living as we choose.”

“These are your beautiful days, Julia Beckett," he promised softly.”

“..the fields might fall to fallow and the birds might stop their song awhile; the growing things might die and lie in silence under snow, while through it all the cold sea wore its face of storms and death and sunken hopes...and yet unseen beneath the waves a warmer current ran that, in its time, would bring the spring.”

“My pleasure," he assured me, propping one shoulder against the doorjamb and folding his arms across his chest. "Rather nice change from my normal daily routine. I don't often have comely young maidens throwing themselves at my feet.""Yes, well," I said, coloring, "that won't happen again."He smiled down at me, and after a final handshake I made my departure. I had almost reached the end of the neatly edged walk when he spoke."What a pity," he said, but I don't think I was meant to hear it.”

“Knowing that the battle will not end the way he wishes does not make it any less worthwhile the fight.”

“There's a line in The Barretts of Wimpole Street - you know, the play - where Elizabeth Barrett is trying to work out the meaning of one of Robert Browning's poems, and she shows it to him, and he reads it and he tells her when he wrote that poem, only God and Robert Browning knew what it meant, and now only God knows. And that's how I feel about studying English. Who knows what the writer was thinking, and why should it matter? I'd rather just read for enjoyment.”