And she was terribly aware that she was alive. Not just living and breathing, but ...alive.

I'm terrified that I will never be able to put him from my mind. I don't love him but I'm afraid that he will make it impossible for me ever to love anyone else.

The suffering of a loved one was in many ways worse than one's one suffering because it left one feeling so very helpless.

Life, she realized, so often became a determined, relentless avoidance of pain-of one's own, of other people's. But sometimes pain had to be acknowledged and even touched so that one could move into it and through it and past it. Or else be destroyed by it.

Fear is a powerful beast, if it is allowed the mastery.

Why do I want to run from happiness?

Suddenly, and for the first time, he was at the center of his own life, living it and loving it.