Had any poet adequately described the wretched ugliness of a loved one turned inside out with grief?

I am not a storyteller . . . not like the others. I only have one tale to tell.

He had the vague sense of standing on a threshold, the crossing of which would change everything.

You'll beat this. I know it doesn't feel like it, but you will. You're a survivor." "I don't want to survive it." "I know that, too," Nell had said. "And it's fair enough. But sometimes we don't have a choice.

Nell was not one for friends and had never hidden her distaste for most other humans, their neurotic compulsion for the acquisition of allies.

Ah, well. Life's too short for moderation, wouldn't you say?

Those who live in memories are never really dead." The House At Riverton