A doctor should never try to cure the incurable. - Stefan Zweig

Confidences are always risky: a secret entrusted to a stranger make him less of one. You've given away something of yourself, given him the advantage.

He looked at her again, now with the vague abject shyness that older men often have with young women, as though asking their indulgence for no longer being young.

Someone who's on top of the world isn't much of an observer: happy people are poor psychologists. But someone who's troubled about something is on the alert. The perceived threat sharpens his senses - he takes in more than he usually does.