Boundaries keep people out mine served only to keep me in.
I suppose what one wants really is ideal company and books are ideal company.
Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.
Literature for me was a magnificent destiny for which I was not yet fully prepared. 76
Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature
That sun, that light had faded, and she had faded with them. Now she was as grey as the season itself.
Of course, the spectacle of two people’s happiness is always something of a magnet for the unclaimed.
And without understanding, could each properly love the other?
As a devil’s advocate Mr Neville was faultless. And yet, she knew, there was a flaw in his reasoning, just as there was a flaw in his ability to feel.
Old times, sad times. I feel better about them now than I did then.
I reflected how easy it is for a man to reduce women of a certain age to imbecility. All he has to do is give an impersonation of desire, or better still, of secret knowledge, for a woman to feel herself a source of power.
I think that those few words were my greatest mistake.
All good fortune is a gift of the gods and … you don’t win the favor of the ancient gods by being good but by being bold.
Always let them think of you as singing and dancing.
Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.
Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.
Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.
Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.
The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule.