“If you can't give it all you've got, don't bother.”

“Sometimes the gap between what you are and what you want to be is a little piece of paper called your college degree. So jump.”

“Not everything you're good at is what you're called to do.”

“There's something very enticing about an empty bench under a tree. And if it's facing a river, that's the bench for me.”

“I know I can't own a hilltop, a meadow, or a mountainside. But keeping it a secret somehow makes it mine.”

“When I trust someone I do it without doubt or fear or reservation. And then I work on a Plan B.”

“You teach me now how cruel you've been - cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yoursel...”

“I knew they would kill me when they found out, but He struggled for words, releasing a sharp breath. I think I realized that I would rather die because I betrayed them, than live because I betrayed...”

“Ah," she cried, "you look so cool." Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space. With an effort she glanced down at the table.You always look so cool," she repeated.She h...”

“She looked at him like it physically hurt her not to speak, and yet she stayed silent.”

“I think this point is so important, I'm going to repeat it: You should never listen to criticism that is primarily intended to wound, even if it contains more than a grain of truth.”

“There might have been prettier women in the room but, when she turned those babies on, fluttered her eyelashes, I was hers. It had taken me nearly fifteen years to extinguish their light. Now, when...”

“here she is, all mine, trying her best to give me all she can. How could I ever hurt her? But I didnt understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can...”

“Any happiness, no matter how brief, seemed better than the long, simmering torture of waking up day after day, knowing I could never have him.”

“Everyone always wants to know how you can tell when it's true love, and the answer is this: when the pain doesn't fade and the scars don't heal, and it's too damned late.”