She was overstrained with grief and loneliness: almost any shoulder would have done as well.

Most affectations conceal something eventually, even though they don't in the beginning.

I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart.

I don't much care where I am anymore, nor expect very much from places.

but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering.

It isn't given to us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world. They will not be cured by our most efficacious drugs or slain with our sharpest swords.

Switzerland is a country where very few things begin, but many things end.