If your ceiling should fall down, then you have lost a room, but gained a courtyard. Think of it that way.

She had so much love to give – she had always felt that – and now there was somebody to whom she could give this love, and that, she knew, was good; for that is what redeems us, that is what makes our pain and sorrow bearable – this giving of love to others, this sharing of the heart.

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These men were like leeches; they sucked away at the goodness of a woman’s heart until it was dry and all her love had been used up. That took a long time, he knew, because women seemed to have vast reservoirs of goodness in them.

Alexander McCall Smith

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