It seemed that up until this moment she had been only half alive.
Success is often harder to take than failure.
There's an old press-agents' slogan that's good advice: Don't read your publicity - weigh it.
Most people are so busy knocking themselves out trying to do everything they think they should, they never get around to do what they want to do.
War makes strangers bedfellows.
... maybe that's all anyone who writes or paints or sculpts is doing anyway -- excusing themselves for refusing to live like other people or be like them.