Quotes from Eileen Goudge

Why was it that the only choices that truly mattered were the ones you felt least prepare to make?

Still waters run deep.

Looking at him now, she saw a study in contrasts. Someone who was kind and loyal but who could also be stubborn and intractable; who was his own man but also your typical man from Mars; who was always there for her but who had a tendency to hold back when showing his own emotions; who was forgetful at times but who never forgot was was most important. In short, someone who wasn't perfect but perfect for her, because of rather than in spite of his flaws.

in life, certain choices are like dying. Final, with no hope of ever turning back. You simply have to get through it with as much grace as you can muster.

He did not want his son to be all for present success, as the American, or to be all for tradition, as is the Englishman, but he thought the two might find a happy meeting place in a mind not yet well formed.

muddy water is often made clear if allowed to stand still.

Friends! It is only when the cold season comes that we know the pine tree and the cypress to be evergreens, and friends are known in adversity.

a heart that is busy cannot mourn

as poison that reaches the blood spreads through the body, so does the love of gossip spread through the soul of woman.

killing a buffalo, then cutting open its belly and crawling inside until the storm had passed. And that's what she'd done with Max, wasn't it? She'd used him to stay warm.

What else should she have expected? That he'd be here, waiting with open arms for her forever? No. She had hurt him. And he had done what any sane person would do. And now it was too late.

You cannot speak of the ocean to a well frog, nor sing of ice to a summer insect. She will not understand.

why is it that the things that matter most, we get so close, we don't see them?

Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars.

Max had never been pure and shining, enthroned on an altar in her heart, an icon. No, he was something that was lived in. Like a house full of nicks and jumble and worn chair arms, and more wonderful than any immaculate palace.

Man does not attain the one-winged birds of our childhood's tale, they must rise together.

married Amanda. Recently

This …this shouldn't have happened. I'm sorry." "Sorry?" Weak laughter bubbled up in her. Sorry was for when you stepped on someone's toe, or when you knocked over a lamp. Not for when you crushed someone's entire world.

There was nothing left to say. He was walking away, taking with him everything she had ever wanted.

A final truth of her own dawned in her, too: that she loved him, even now, and that she would go on loving him no matter what.

He had been far away from home, and something terrible had happened … and it was that something which had taken their lives and blown them apart. She understood too, now, after all these years, that Brian hadn't meant to hurt her.

He would always love her, in one way. But was love ever that simple? One thing and not another? Defining how he felt about Rose would be like trying to cut a piece out of the sky.

Mon Amour, Toujours. All My Love

And a ring … it is empty in the middle. The emptiness can be filled only by the person who wears it.