Even friends need private spaces, if only within the depths of their own souls, where no one else is allowed to intrude.

There had to be a reason why they were not going to marry. They had both been so adamant about it. What the devil was the reason?

I do not admire greatness that has no substance.

My happiness has to come from within myself or it is too fragile a thing to be of any use to me and too much of a burden to benefit any of my loved ones.

Tears never were worth the effort of crying them.

Did everyone make the most ghastly blunders at regularly intervals through their life and live to regret them ever afterward? Was everyone's life filled with confusing and contradictory mix of guilt and innocence, hatred and love, concern and unconcern, and any number of other pairings of polar opposites? Or were most people one thing or the other - good or bad, cheerful or crotchety, generous or miserly, and so on.

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