there is no sin punished more implacably by nature than the sin of resistance to change.

For sleep, one needs endless depths of blackness to sink into; daylight is too shallow, it will not cover one.

I sometimes think that perhaps our minds are too weak to grasp joy or sorrow except in small things...In the big things joy and sorrow are just alike - overwhelming. At least, we only get them bit by bit, in tiny flashes - in waves - that our minds can't stand for very long. p 199

The web of marriage is made by propinquity, in the day to day living side by side, looking outward in the same direction. It is woven in space and in time of the substance of life itself.

How one hates to think of oneself as alone. How one avoids it. It seems to imply rejection or unpopularity.

This is what one thirsts for, I realize, after the smallness of the day, of work, of details, of intimacy - even of communication, one thirsts for the magnitude and universality of a night full of stars, pouring into one like a fresh tide.

To be deeply in love is, of course, a great liberating force.