Is this what sadness is all about? Is it what comes over us when beautiful memories shatter in hindsight because the remembered happiness fed not just on actual circumstances but on a promise that was not kept?

I know that disavowal is an unusal form of betrayal. From the outside it is impossible to tell if you are disowning someone or simply exercising discretion, being considerate, avoiding embarrassments and sources of irritation. But you, who are doing the disowning, you know what you're doing. And disavowal pulls the underpinnings away from a relationship just as surely as other more flamboyant types of betrayal.

When an airplane's engines fail, it is not the end of the flight.

So I was still guilty. And if I was not guilty because one cannot be guilty of betraying a criminal, then I was guilty of having loved a criminal.

People who commit monstrous crimes are not necessarily monsters. If they were, things would be easy. But they aren't and it is one of the experiences of life.

There's this old saying that, if you aren't particularly gifted in natural sciences, if you don't want to become a teacher or pastor or doctor, and don't know what else to do, then you become a lawyer. But I've never regretted it.

I thought that if the right time gets missed, if one has refused or been refused something for too long, it's too late, even if it is finally tackled with energy and received with joy. Or is there no such thing as "too late"? Is there only "late," and is "late" always better than "never"? I don't know.