Samantha will be just as polite as I am, my dear. She won't be objective at all... no wait! She corrected my Shakespeare. Maybe she will give you an honest opinion. Let's keep her.

There it was. Mercy. Grace. And just as she'd told James, fiction conveyed change and truth and was loved and digested again and again because it reflected the worst, the best, and all the moments in between of the human experience.

Self-protection keeps you from love, Mr. Knightley-all love. I am so sad at how I've kept them at a distance-the Muirs, Alex, Father John, Kyle, Hannah...Anyone and everyone who has ever stood by me. I played God in our relationships. I determined their value by how much I let them in, by how much I let them determine my worth. I'm not God. And I don't need to work so hard anymore...

I'm not guaranteed a happy ending just because I make it to the last page.

Do you know what that's like? A gun held to your head? Your life doesn't flash before your eyes; it stops. Mine stopped, and there was nothing, nothing in me. I didn't exist.

Have you ever confused your senses? Something taste like another thing smells?

Artists create things that point us to beauty, to truth, to God.

Yes, Marianne. She lost her sense of right and wrong. She thought that because loving Willoughby felt good, it had to be right

There were about three other homes after that, but I was barely present. Ihad learned to hide well. I don’t mean to sound breezy about all this, but Iactually don’t recall much outside the deep aloneness I felt when I was apartfrom my books.

I closed my eyes to hug him tighter and give him that elusive feeling of unconditional love and complete safety. The feeling we seek but, in this life and in this world, perhaps never quite find.