Valerie

“The snow fell fast and thick. He looked up for a moment in the air, and thought that those white ashes strewn upon his hopes and misery, were suited to them well. He looked round on the whitening ground, and thought how Marion's foot-prints would be hushed and covered up, as soon as made, and even that remembrance of her blotted out. But he never felt the weather, and he never stirred.”
― Charles Dickens, The Battle of Life

“Then he sat down beside the casket and rested his forehead against its cold metal side.
Silence held him in its cold and gentle hands.”
― Richard Matheson, I Am Legend

“It's not what said at times like these. We don't give prizes for rhetoric to the best goodbye. To thank each other for a wonderful time, to separate with a smile, or tears; to part with a final kiss or a final word— no one knows what to do. Even I look away and give couples their privacy.
When I look back, I see a girl on a doorstep, watching a uniformed soldier's back as he hurries away, lest he give in to the unendurable temptation to turn around. I see a friend on the stairs, waiting to catch a brokenhearted girl in her arms after the girl has waited outside, long past reason, in the slim chance that he might.”
― Julie Berry, Lovely War

“This pure young feeling, this gentle and forbearing feeling of each towards the other, brought with it its reward in a softening light that seemed to shine on their position. The relations between them did not look wilful, or capricious, or a failure, in such a light; they became elevated into something more self-denying, honorable, affectionate, and true.”
― Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood