“There is no such joy in the tavern as upon the road there to.”

The closest bonds we will ever know are bonds of grief. The deepest community one of sorrow.

She said that these were things all women knew yet seldom spoke of. Lastly she said that if women were drawn to rash men it was only that in their secret hearts they knew that a man who would not kill for them was of no use at all.

I always thought when I got older that God would sort of come into my life in some way. He didn’t. I don’t blame him. If I was him I’d have the same opinion about me that he does.

He’d half meant to speak but those eyes had altered the world forever in the space of a heartbeat.

You fix what you can fix and you let the rest go. If there ain’t nothin to be done about it it aint even a problem. It’s just a aggravation.

If only my heart were stone.

Life is brief and to have to spend every day of it doing what somebody else wants you to do is not the way to live it.

If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.

You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don’t count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else.

Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.

By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.

He said that those who have endured some misfortune will always be set apart but that it is just that misfortune which is their gift and which is their strength.

The things that I loved were very frail. Very fragile. I didn’t know that. I thought they were indestructible. They weren’t.

Do you know what happens with people who cannot govern themselves? That’s right. Others come in to govern for them.

Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I’d always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it is always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals come easily.

Thought that can merge wholly into feeling, feeling that can merge wholly into thought – these are the artist’s highest joy.

Working with Mario Testino was a joy. He’s very young spirited, and it’s always lovely and a pleasure to spend time talking to him about all different things.

Excess of joy is harder to bear than any amount of sorrow.

You can make my chest swell with joy and cave with pain but peace is something I taught myself. Chest swelling chest caving with each new breath of fresh air.

It all seemed a hollow sham now – that strict code, that conscientious virtue that condemned her to the sterile joys of pious women! No, no, she’d had enough of that; she wanted to live!

This was love at first sight, love everlasting: a feeling unknown, unhoped for, unexpected–in so far as it could be a matter of conscious awareness; it took entire possession of him, and he understood, with joyous amazement, that this was for life.

There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation.

When you let me touch your skin, I can feel your pain. What joy you get in keeping me away?