The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.
Donna TarttI'd been assured, at age 21 or so, by a well-known editor who saw the first part of The Secret History in what was basically its final form, that it would never be published because "no woman has ever written a successful novel from a male point of view."
Donna TarttBut sometimes, unexpectedly, grief pounded over me in waves that left me gasping; and when the waves washed back, I found myself looking out over a brackish wreck which was illumined in a light so lucid, so heartsick and empty, that I could hardly remember that the world had ever been anything but dead.
Donna TarttSometimes you can do all the right things and not succeed. And that's a hard lesson of reality.
Donna Tartt