Was this some new level of depravity? Had he developed a spinster fetish?

I didn't expect it was going to be easy. But hard work is a lot easier to tolerate when it's something you want to do instead of something you have no choice about.

Fate is the malevolent little jester sitting up in the heavens and pondering over how ridiculous we humans are and he does his best to make fools out of all of us. And sooner or later he succeeds.

And you're not the kind of girl I want." Surely he couldn't mean the fact that I was Mexican. From what I knew of Hardy, there wasn't a bit of prejudice in him. He never used racist words, never looked down on someone for things they couldn't help. "What kind do you want?" I asked with difficulty. "Someone I can leave without looking back.

She heard the trace of fear in his voice. The fear that a small boy must have felt when every woman he loved had disappeared from his life, swept away by a merciless fever. She didn’t know how to reassure him, or how to console his long-ago grief.

Only you could love such a vile, selfish peacock, Evie.

It's fairly easy to break hearts, Miss Duvall. The more interesting challenge is how to keep someone's love, not to lose it.