Helen Kieran Reilly quotes:

Domesticity was meat and drink to Mouse, and she liked taking care of people. She had done it for so long that it had become a habit with her.

Joy could be as exhausting as grief.

Do good and throw it in the sea; if God doesn't see it, the fishes will.

Beauty is only bearable when you're happy.

emotion without discipline is as dangerous as a high-powered car without brakes.

On the whole, mental archaeology was a sordid digging proposition. The evil men did endured, the good was infinitely more ephemeral. You could generally find out whether a man had been a horse-thief, or an embezzler or a wife-beater, if you worked hard enough, but acts of kindness, of charity, a gay spirit, vanished without leaving a trace.

Time is the measure of that which changes ...

You trust wholly or not at all. Trust was not divisible.