if you only shine lights on your flaws, all your perfects will dim - Colleen McCullough

orgy of sampling Europe’s charms, she never went back, and that was strange. In his experience people always

The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it.

The Greeks say it's a sin against the gods to love something beyond all reason. And do you remember that they say when someone is loved so, the gods become jealous, and strike the object down in the very fullness of its flower?