Whether deliberately, unconsciously or accidentally, she seems to have composed her own life so that its fitful, rudderless, and self-doubting first half was alchemized into gold when the austere bluestocking became the fallen woman.

The sign of a good marriage is that everything is debatable and challenged; nothing is turned into law or policy. The rules, if any, are known only to the two players, who seek no public trophies.

The journey is over. Love to all.

One hires lawyers as on hires plumbers, because one wants to keep one's hands off the beastly drains.

. . . a relationship has a momentum, it must change and develop, and will tend to move toward the point of greatest commitment.

Why do long marriages occasionally endow their inhabitants with a rare kind of equilibrium otherwise almost unknown in human relations? My guess is that the value of the moment has at last overshadowed the long history of resentments, betrayals, and boredom.

You can flush my ashes down the toilet, for all I care.