It had to teach her to think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end it itself.
One could be happy not only without love, but despite it.
Age isn't how old you are but how old you feel.
opened the door a crack wide enough for the entire world to pass through .
More than mother and son, they were accomplices in solitude.
One had to live a long time to know a man's true nature.