William Kimball

“as she was when they first met: gentle and seemly, intelligent enough that a man would gladly seek her counsel even on important matters, a bit headstrong about petty things, but otherwise amenable, accustomed as she was to accepting from her father’s hands guidance and support and protection.”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter

“To love someone, who for whatever reason cannot return your feelings is painful. But if you listen to the poets, perhaps there's a kind of beauty to that love. It burns bright, and it's never tainted by reality or by overuse. It is clear and fierce today as it was the very first day it began. There is a beauty to that.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Yes. Yes. Yes. It was true that all this time she had remembered, year after year, every wound he had ever caused her—even though she had always known that he never wounded her the way a grown person intends harm to another, but rather the way a child strikes out playfully at his companion. Each time he offended her, she had tended to the memory the way one tends to a venomous sore. And with each humiliation he brought upon himself by acting on any impulse he might have—it struck her like the lash of a whip against her flesh, causing a suppurating wound. It wasn’t true that she willfully or deliberately harbored ill feelings toward her husband; she knew she wasn’t usually narrow-minded, but with him she was.”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter

“I learned to appreciate the wide range of chores. Our wives must do when we men go away to work. I would go shopping in the village and set a nice table, and at night I would wait at the door for Usch to come home. This period confirmed for me what I firmly believe to be the truth—that without Usch I am nothing.”
― Raymond F. Toliver, The Blond Knight of Germany: A biography of Erich Hartmann