“We’ll have some wine,” he said. “And promise me you’ll forget the ugliness for a little while. You know, as long as you remember the ugliness, you might as well live in oblivion, because there’s nothing for you in life. The ugliness is everywhere, and you just have to overlook it.”
“Someone else said that to me once,” she said.
“It’s quite right,” he said. “And you have to face that truth before you can live with yourself even for a short time. Otherwise you will be in constant search of escape.”
“I know,” she said quietly.
(Pamela Moore, Chocolates for Breakfast, p.116)
“It isn’t a tragedy, angel. People like you, and me, and Janet — we’re not capable of tragedy. This was no epic play, with heroic characters and vast emotions. This was not a tragedy. It was a child’s game that came to an end.”
“But I feel a little sad,” she said. “Now that it’s here, I realize that I didn’t want it to end.”
“In a sense it doesn’t have to. You and I will end, of course. But the beauty of it never lay in the characters. It was the enchantment that made it precious.
He ran his thumb musingly across the back of her hand.
“You never have to lose the enchantment,” he said. “You needn’t bother to remember ME, I was unimportant. But do this for me, never let the enchantment go out of your life.”
(Pamela Moore, “Chocolates for Breakfast,” p.167)