“If there was anything her short life had taught her, it was that a person must be tough. Otherwise, you were had.”

“She supposed that all those years of loving a person who was dishonest had taught her a few things.”

“Her childhood, then her adolescence, had taught her patience, hope, silence and the easy manipulation of the weapons and virtues of all prisoners.”

“She was not used to being cruel, but he had taught her how.”

“The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers — stern and wild ones, — and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.”

“She had waited all her life for something, and it had killed her when it found her.”

“She was like a drowning person, flailing, reaching for anything that might save her. Her life was an urgent, desperate struggle to justify her life.”

“What well-bred woman would refuse her heart to a man who had just saved her life? Not one; and gratitude is a short cut which speedily leads to love.”

“They called each other family and that’s what they were—sisters. Many people in the world had family of the heart, kin by choice rather than by blood, and hers had come along in her darkest hour and saved her life.”

“Her experience had taught her that people who insisted on having others recognize their outstanding qualities usually didn’t have any.”