Like faith, marriage is a mystery. The person you're committed to spending your life with is known and yet unknown, at the same time remarkably intimate and necessarily other. The classic seven-year itch may not be a case of familiarity breeding ennui and contempt, but the shock of having someone you thought you knew all too well suddenly seem a stranger. When that happens, you are compelled to either recommit to the relationship or get the hell out. There are many such times in a marriage.

But hope has an astonishing resilience and strength. Its very persistence in our hearts indicates that it is not a tonic for wishful thinkers but the ground on which realists stand.

Just the knowledge that a good book is waiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.

I write what I would like to read.

When you are unhappy, is there anything more maddening than to be told that you should be contented with your lot?

Friendship is an art, and very few persons are born with a natural gift for it.

There are men I could spend eternity with. But not this life.