The courage to live when the best days were past. - James Salter

THERE ARE THINGS I LOVE ABOUT marriage. I love the familiarity of it," Nedra said. "It's like a tattoo. You wanted it at the time, you have it, it's implanted in your skin, you can't get rid of it. You're hardly even aware of it any more. I suppose I'm very conventional," she decided.

The summer has ended. The garden withers. The mornings become chill. I am thirty, I am thirty-four -the years turn dry as leaves.'

I can't explain it. It's what turns you to powder, being ground between what you can't do and what you must do. You just turn to dust.