“She had loved him for such a long time, she thought. How was it that she did now know him at all?”

“She did love him, you know… It was a selfish, possessive love, but it was all she knew how to give.”

“And it was at moments like this that she had to remind herself that she was in love with him, or had once been in love with him, a long time ago.”

“Now she had to pretend not to love the man she was pretending to love while pretending she wasn't sleeping with him.”

“Now she had a fumbling knowledge that, had she ever understood Ashley, she would never have loved him; had she ever understood Rhett, she would never have lost him.”

“My love for you is a prayer, she thought. Love is the only prayer I know. She thought she had never loved him so much as at this moment, when she heard the convent door close, hard and final, and felt the wall shutting her in.”

“She thought how strange it would be if she ever said 'Hello' to him. One did not greet oneself each morning.”

“At first, she could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him?”

“but she realized that she wanted him to know her. She wanted him to understand her, if only because she had strange sense that he was the kind of man she could fall in love with, even if she didn't want to.”

“Sometimes a woman's love of being loved gets the better of her conscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she doesn't love him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in, and she does what she can to repair the wrong.”