Cats and monkeys - monkeys and cats - all human life is there! - Henry James

She knew that this silent, motionless portal opened into the street; if the sidelights had not been filled with green paper, she might have looked out on the little brown stoop and the well-worn brick pavement. But she had no wish to look out, for this would have interfered with her theory that there was a strange, unseen place on the other side — a place which became, to the child’s imagination, according to its different moods, a region of delight or terror.

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

It wouldn't be the first time she had seen herself obliged to accept with smothered irony other people's interpretation of her conduct. She often ended by giving up to them — it seemed really the way to live — the version that met their convenience.