Sometimes even the imagination lets one down.

I do believe in fate, Anne-not the blind fate that gives one no freedom of choice, but a fate that sets down a pattern for each of our lives and gives us choices, numerous choices, by which to find that pattern and be happy.

Perhaps she was just looking for love in the wrong places. In all the safe places. What if love was not safe at all?

Always guarding one's real, precious self in a cocoon of tranquility within a thousand masks. Life itself had become a secret affair.

I do beg you to have some regard for my pride. A million years? I assure you I would stop asking after the first thousand.

There is no happily-ever-after to run to. We have to work for happiness.

I am not sure what lonliness is," she said. "If it is not literally being solitary, is it the fear of solitude, of being alone with oneself? I feel no such fear. I like being alone." "What do you fear then?" he asked her. She glanced briefly at him and smiled, a fragile expression that spoke for itself even before she found words. "Never finding myself again.