Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something-an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man's, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.

She was overstrained with grief and loneliness: almost any shoulder would have done as well.