Shweta Grewal

1. Bad is not an absolute, but a relative term. Ask the robber who used the cash he stole to feed his infant; the rapist who was sexually abused as a child; the kidnapper who truly believed he was saving a life. And just because you break the law doesn't mean you have intentionally crossed the line into evil. Sometimes the line creeps up on you, and before you know it, you're standing on the other side.

~Jodi Picoult, Vanishing Acts

2. That's the paradox of loss: How can something that's gone weigh us down so much?

~Jodi Picoult, The Storyteller

3. Now would you do me a favor?' From somewhere inside me came this devastating assault to make me cry. But I withstood. I would not cry. I would merely indicate to Jennifer - by the affirmative nodding of my head - that I would be happy to do her any favor whatsoever.

'Would you please hold me very tight?' she asked.

I put my hand on her forearm - Christ, so thin - and gave it a little squeeze.

'No, Oliver,' she said, 'really hold me. Next to me.'I was very, very careful - of the tubes and things - as I got onto the bed with her and put my arms around her.

'Thanks, Ollie.'

Those were her last words.

~ Erich Segal, Love Story (Love Story, #1)

4. I loved a man who had opened up a world to me but hadn’t loved me enough to stay in it.