“She understood that her heart operated on its own instructions, that she had no control over it or, indeed, anything else.”

“She understood too much. She understood that she had reached her destiny point, that time and the circumstances of her life had conspired to bring her to this place. For one ecstatic moment she was the axis on which the stars revolved.”

“Her heart had already been broken many times over, and yet she still believed she was destined to meet the man of her life.”

“She had grown older. And he loved her more now than he had loved her when he understood her better, when she was the product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become.”

“She hasn't your strength. She's never had any strength. She's never had anything but heart.”

“She knew that he loved her above all else, more than anything in the world, but only for his own sake.”

“He offered her the world. She said she had her own.”

“She had a brainy girls discomfort about her own beauty and its effects on folks.”

“She could not ignore life. She had to live it and it was too brutal, too hostile, for her even to try to gloss over its harshness with a smile.”

“My mother took too much, a great deal too much, care of me; she over-educated, over-instructed, over-dosed me with premature lessons of prudence: she was so afraid that I should ever do a foolish thing, or not say a wise one, that she prompted my every word, and guided my every action. So I grew up, seeing with her eyes, hearing with her ears, and judging with her understanding, till, at length, it was found out that I had not eyes, ears or understanding of my own.”