“I cannot grieve at death. It seems to me the greatest boon the Almighty has granted us. Consequently I cannot appreciated the grief of those who mourn the loss of loved ones, particularly if they go early from this hell of misery to which we have been doomed.”

“I could not do this, I realized, if I were immortal. This degree of love of life and of one another is granted, I saw for once and for ever, not to immortals, but to those who live briefly and always under the shadow of death and loss.”

“If we cannot take away all the grief, all the evil, all the death, we will start with loving everyone, trying ourselves not to give the grief, the evil, the death, with the faith that the rest of the grief, evil and death will disappear.”

“If some lives form a perfect circle, other take shape in ways we cannot predict or always understand. Loss has been part of my journey. But it has also shown me what is precious. So has love for which I can only be grateful.”

“God, grant me strength to accept those things I cannot change.”

“For my own part, I cannot without grief see so much as an innocent beast pursued and killed that has no defence, and from which we have received no offence at all.”

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies within us while we live.”

“I have never been able to write the story. I reach a certain point and cannot go on. The death of kings can be recited, but not of one’s child.”

“American literature was enriched with Men Who Loved Allison…. Of the actual and eventual worth of this romance I cannot pretend to be an unprejudiced judge. The tale seems to me one of those many books which have profited, very dubiously indeed, by having obtained, in one way of another, the repute of being indecent.”

“I cannot love a man who cannot protect me.”