“What do you want to be when you grow up,” asked the goat her ambitious lamb.” A wolf,” answered the lamb.”

“Whoever survived cruel situations, finds the strength of obedient faith.”

“Gavin is just a kid. He hasn’t figured out yet how cruel life can be. How it can take everything from you, dig in its sharp teeth and not let go. He still has hope. I can’t tarnish that.”

“You know if you would just do as I say I wouldn’t have to hurt you.”

“He told me once it was cruel to give hope where none should be.”

“Cruel’, O’Kelly laughed, ‘it’s cruel to tell children the truth. If anything convinces me of God’s mercy, then it’s his gift of making us unable to lie.”

“Nothing is ever certain.”

“At first I did not love you, Jude; that I own. When I first knew you I merely wanted you to love me. I did not exactly flirt with you; but that inborn craving which undermines some women’s morals almost more than unbridled passion–the craving to attract and captivate, regardless of the injury it may do the man–was in me; and when I found I had caught you, I was frightened. And then–I don’t know how it was– I couldn’t bear to let you go–possibly to Arabella again–and so I got to love you, Jude. But you see, however fondly it ended, it began in the selfish and cruel wish to make your heart ache for me without letting mine ache for you.”

“They send a person who can never stay,” she whispered. “Who can never accept my offer of companionship for more than a little while. They send me a hero I can’t help … just the sort of person I can’t help falling in love with.”…As I sailed into the lake I realized the Fates really were cruel. They sent Calypso someone she couldn’t help but love. But it worked both ways. For the rest of my life I would be thinking about her. She would always be my biggest what if.”

“Why is there ever this perverse cruelty in humankind, that makes us hurt most those we love best?”