Relief is a short-lived emotion, passive and thin. The agony of doubt disappears, leaving little memory of how it really felt. Life aligns behind the new truth.

Time is what keeps things from happening all at once.

She closed her eyes. "I didn't know that. i didn't know anything. It scares me the things I told myself. But I would have told myself almost anything, because I wanted to believe him." "Why?" "Because I wanted to be with you.

He didn't seem to realize that three excuses was as good as no excuse.

It was a blessing and also a curse of handwritten letters that unlike email you couldn’t obsessively reread what you’d written after you’d sent it. You couldn’t attempt to un-send it. Once you’d sent it it was gone. It was an object that no longer belonged to you but belonged to your recipient to do with what he would. You tended to remember the feeling of what you’d said more than the words. You gave to object away and left yourself with the memory. That was what it was to give.

You just have to let people love you in the way they can

Lena knew she had spent too much of her life in a state of passive dread, just waiting for something bad to happen. In a life like that, relief was as close as you got to happiness.