Christine

“As a matter of fact she does not know to this day if those words were spoken, or if he only caught her, wound his arms around her, held her so tightly, with such continual, changing pressures that it seemed more than two arms were needed, that she was surrounded by him, his body strong and light, demanding and renouncing all at once, as if he was telling her she was wrong to give up on him, everything was possible, but then again that she was not wrong, he meant to stamp himself on her and go."

"Passion”
― Alice Munro, Runaway: Stories

“Sometimes, as now, her heart twisted and broke under his determination to wound her. At others, she was almost convinced that she felt nothing more for him, that he had overdrawn on her endurance: then she would stay silent for awhile, almost at peace, beyond his reach, not knowing whether she had been utterly vanquished or become completely invincible. However, it required merely some slight attention on his part to restore all her apprehensions - for these extremes of feeling only existed within the compass of her love."

"In One's Own House”
― Shirley Hazzard, Cliffs of Fall and Other Stories

“My need of your words: for such closeness there should be a word beyond love."

Helen, to Leith, in "The Great Fire”
― Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire

“I am infinitely strange to myself.”
― John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman