When people say they are happy for you it may mean they are sad for themselves.

You know a relationship has deteriorated past the point of salvage when one person detests another's gestures.

Like most good looking women, she was never sure of her beauty, and had to keep checking on it, to make sure it was still there.

You can't drown yourself that simply. All good suicides involve speed and irreversibility, because the body will always move to protect itself against the sicko mind trying to do it in.

You must be the greatest mother in the world, but you must also, simultaneously, withdraw from your children's lives. You don't want to be the major force in their whole lives. You need to do the job adequately and as best you can, and then provide them with independence from you. You have to give them enough so that they won't need you anymore.

People do sometimes change, of course. Habits, allegiances, dreams are all alterable, but only under extraordinary pressure - like great love, fear, grief. More often, people don't change. A girl who never missed a day of work does not suddenly decide to stay home in bed, for no good reason.

When people say they are happy for you it may mean they are sad for themselves.