[…] on questioning why she looked so sad, she would remark, 'My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.''That's Montaigne, isn't it?'And she would give the tiniest nod. 'I quote others only in order the better to express myself,' she'd say, which was itself, I sensed, another quote.

I mean, it would have made things a lot easier if we understood there was no way of living that can immunize you against sadness. And that sadness is intrinsically part of the fabric of happiness. You can’t have one without the other. Of course, they come in different degrees and quantities. But there is no life where you can be in a state of sheer happiness forever. And imagining there is just breeds more unhappiness in the life you’re in.

Such a sadness to that word, don't you think? Legacy. What a meaningless thing. All that work for a future in which they don't appear [...] What is legacy but the most empty and mediocre substitute for what we have. Steel and money and fancy concert halls don't give you immortality.

I miss you,' she said into the air, as if the spirits of every person she'd loved were in the room with her.

It is so easy, while trapped in just the one life, to imagine that times of sadness or tragedy or failure or fear are a result of that particular existence. That it is a by-product of living a certain way, rather than simply living.

it would have made things a lot easier if we understood there was no way of living that can immunize you against sadness. And that sadness is intrinsically part of the fabric of happiness. You can’t have one without the other. Of course, they come in different degrees and quantities. But there is no life where you can be in a state of sheer happiness for ever. And imagining there is just breeds more unhappiness in the life you’re in.

She was a waterfall of apologies. She was drowning in herself.

One life of sadness was enough. What is the point of risking more?

Sadness seemed to me like a disease, and I worried it was contagious.