"Again, I am encompassed by walls of solitude. I believe that Hell must be a confinement of our own contrivance, laid brick by brick, until, by our own cowardice and compromise, we have isolated ourselves from all love. And from all that is lovely."

THE LOOKING GLASS

"I do not know why we delude ourselves that life is predictable and safe, when it’s really just a carton of eggs—always just one stumble away from being scrambled."

THE CAROUSEL

"If variety is the spice of life, routine is the bread of it."

THE CAROUSEL

“I just want to say thank you for this opportunity. I don’t believe life owes us anything but that.”

THE LOCKET

"Even as I withheld my love from MaryAnne, she had never stopped filling me with hers. I had never supposed how cold my world would be without her warmth."

THE LETTER

“I believe it a great irony that I learned of life from one dying, and of love from one so lonely.”

THE LOCKET

"I came home to find that MaryAnne had returned. She promptly made it clear that she does not intend to stay. My heart, of necessity, has become acrobatic."

THE LETTER

"It is an awkward thing for a loved one to retain their breath but lose their faculties. I feel as though my heart has been cheated, as I have lost a friend and am not allowed to grieve his passing."

THE LETTER

"Poetry, like life, is its own justification."

TIMEPIECE

"A handsome young man came this evening to inquire for lodging, his intent being to stay in Betheltown for some while. I must remind myself that sunsets too are beautiful, before they leave you cold, dark, and alone."

THE LOCKET

"I have learned much about loss from their pain. Oftentimes it takes the darkness of another’s grief to shed light on our own."

THE LOOKING GLASS

"I have made a grave mistake. I have carelessly handled a heart entrusted to mine. And in so doing I have broken both."

THE LOOKING GLASS

"Love, like for forgiveness, is often found in the confession of it."

THE GIFT

"By some conspiracy of Heaven or Hell (I know not which), a woman has been placed in my keeping. I am reminded of the proverb: A strange woman is a narrow pit."

THE LOOKING GLASS

"A conspiracy of florists, caterers, and clergy have done too well a job of shrouding the virtues of the elopement."

TIMEPIECE

"A broken heart is always looking for a mend."

THE LETTER

"If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, we made one heck of a road crew."

THE CAROUSEL

"Love is never convenient—and rarely painless."

THE SUNFLOWER

“Such darkness besets me. I craveMaryAnne’s laughter almost as the drunkard craves his bottle. And for much the same reasons.”

TIMEPIECE

"It has been a mistake living my life in the past. One cannot ride a horse backwards and still hold its reins."

THE LETTER

"Life, like a good book, often comes full circle."

THE CAROUSEL

"I have made a grave mistake. I have carelessly handled a heart entrusted to mine. And in so doing I have broken both."

THE LOOKING GLASS

“All that death requires of us is to forsake the future.”

THE LOCKET

"What prudery so ritualizes my grief as to press my letters with black sealing wax."

TIMEPIECE

"I believe that the difference between Heaven and Hell is not so much the climate as the company. Living in a world populated by people like themselves would, for many, be Heaven. And for others, it would, indeed, be Hell."

THE GIFT

"How often the course of a life is changed in one pulse of a heart."

THE LOCKET

"I have fled yet another town. It is a precarious line I walk; one step ahead of the noose and one step behind peace."

THE LOOKING GLASS

"The sexton is a peculiar man, enslaved by the dominion of ritual and constancy. His vocation is well chosen as nothing is so reliable as death."

THE LETTER

"There comes to each life at least one Betheltown. But it comes only once and we dare not ask for more."

THE LOCKET

“If the heavens were to open and a host of Angels descend, they could not have produced such an effect on my soul as MaryAnne descending the chapel staircase for our wedding.”

TIMEPIECE

"MaryAnne will neither enter the parlor nor acknowledge its existence. I cannot fault her for such, as we all have rooms we lock and daren’t visit, lest they bring pain."

THE LETTER

"Sometimes I think all I have ever known are McRelationships."

THE GIFT

"It is folly, I suspect, to commence each morning with a letter to my lost love and conclude it with my diary, thereby bleeding at both ends of the day."

THE LOCKET

“Il tempo di solito è bello quando si fa l’amore.”

The weather is always fair when people are in love. –Italian Proverb

THE LAST PROMISE

“L’amore è cieco, ma il matrimonio gli rid la vista.”

Love is blind. Marriage restores one’s vision. –Italian Proverb

THE LAST PROMISE

"Usually life’s greatest gifts come wrapped in adversity."

FINDING NOEL

"Still no word from MaryAnne. My feelings cannot be far distant from those of the dustbowl farmer who, looking out over his withered fields to the blanched sky above, wonders why it will not rain."

THE LETTER

“. . . creative causes must be dictated by passion, and without passion we are doomed to mediocrity.”

THE LOCKET

"When we bury someone we love, we must also bury a part of our heart. But we should not bemoan this loss. Our hearts, perhaps, are all they can take with them."

THE LETTER

"It is folly of our species that we reserve the greatest bouquets for our dead."

THE LETTER

"From our first babblings to our last word, we make but one statement, and that is our life."

THE LETTER

". . . if we write but one book in life, let it be our autobiography."

TIMEPIECE