This isn__ how things were supposed to happen. I was supposed to be me. Not this.

she slammed the door andwas gone.I looked at the closed doorand at the doorknoband strangelyI didn't feelalone.

If it is possible to die of grief then why on earth can't someone be healed by happiness?

You think some are bad or evil or whatnot, but somewhere along the way they were someone's baby, suckling the teat like anybody. Then something puts a volt in 'em and they ain't the same no more.

The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt, pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside our control.

She needed to recover. His father had died in January; it was only the end of May. They needed to stick to the routine they'd established during the intervening months. in that way, their life would return to its original shape, like a spring stretched in bad times but contracting eventually into happiness. That the world could come permanently unsprung had never occurred to him.