I have come to realize you can never be truly happy unless you've known some sorrow.

One of the blessings human beings take for granted is the ability to remember pain without re-feeling it. The pain of the physical wounds is long gone …and the other kind of hurt, the damage done to our spirits, has been healed. We are careful with those scarred places in each other.

There were times in life when you had to take a risk that might end in failure. Because otherwise you would be haunted by what you hadn’t done... the paths you hadn’t taken, the things you hadn’t experienced.

I carry thoughts of you like my own personal constellation. How far away you are, my dearest friend, but no farther than those fixed stars in my soul.

Once he had taken hold, he did not let go. It was not a handshake, it was a possession.

You told me you believed marriage was for other people." "You're the only man who could make me believe that it's for me, too. Although when you get down to it, love is what's real. I still say marriage is just a piece of paper." Jack smiled. "Let's find out," he said, and he pulled me down to the bed with him. Jack & Ella

Leo knew next to nothing about governesses, save for the drab creatures in novels, who tended to fall in love with the lord of the manor, always with bad results.