Ford's last Fifth Queen novel is amazing. The whole cycle is a noble conception.

...she had always known under her mind and now she confessed it: her agony had been, half of it, because one day he would say farewell to her, like that, with the inflexion of a verb. As, just occasionally, using the word 'we' - and perhaps without intention - he had let her know that he loved her.

It was an odd friendship, but the oddnesses of friendships are a frequent guarantee of their lasting texture.

Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has the wrong thing.

And it was a most remarkable, a most moving glance, as if for a moment a lighthouse had looked at me.

I know nothing - nothing in the world - of the hearts of men. I only know that I am alone - horribly alone.

In every man there are two minds that work side by side, the one checking the other; thus emotion stands against reason, intellect corrects passion and first impressions act a little, but very little, before quick reflection.