That's the trouble with caring about anybody, you begin to feel overprotective. Then you begin to feel crowded. - John Updike

Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.

A woman once of some height, she is bent small, and the lingering strands of black look dirty in her white hair. She carries a cane, but in forgetfulness, perhaps, hangs it over her forearm and totters along with it dangling loose like an outlandish bracelet. Her method of gripping her gardener is this: he crooks his right arm, pointing his elbow toward her shoulder, and she shakily brings her left forearm up within his and bears down heavily on his wrist with her lumpish freckled fingers. Her hold is like that of a vine to a wall; one good pull will destroy it, but otherwise it will survive all weathers.

But it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it's fatal not to go through with it.