Valerie

“And the answer was always lost in a tangle of becauses and wells and endless reasons that he clung to like a drowning man at straws.”
― Richard Matheson, Mad House

“But, Mr. Grewgious seeing nothing there, not even a light in the windows, his gaze wandered from the windows to the stars, as if he would have read in them something that was hidden from him. Many of us would, if we could; but none of us so much as know our letters in the stars yet- or seem likely to, in this state of existence - and few languages can be read until their alphabets are mastered.”
― Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood

“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

“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