You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part. - Henry James

He had thought, no doubt, from the day he was born, much more than he had acted; except indeed that he remembered thoughts — a few of them — which at the moment of their coming to him had thrilled him almost like adventures.

I'm a perfectly equipped failure. (...) 'Thank goodness you're a failure- it's why I so distinguish you! Anything else to-day is too hideous. Look about you- look at the successes. Would you be one, on your honour?

To live only to suffer — only to feel the injury of life repeated and enlarged — it seemed to her she was too valuable, too capable, for that. Then she wondered if it were vain and stupid to think so well of herself. When had it even been a guarantee to be valuable? Wasn't all history full of the destruction of precious things? Wasn't it much more probable that if one were fine one would suffer?