Charlotte Rogan

...Mr. Hardie had little patience with that sort of conversation."Ye're born, ye suffer, and ye die. What made ye think ye deserved different?" he wondered aloud when the deacon's gentle answers failed to quiet them.

...and I wondered, not for the first time, if some of life's tragedy arose when people put themselves in situations they were not by nature suited for.

Mr Reichman was brilliant and very good at what he did, but he was still a man, and men rarely knew what decisions a woman had or hadn't made.

I have lost patience with the idea of an insignificant human being standing up above the rest of us--whether he is called Reverend or Doctor or Judge--and shouting at us all about this thing or that. As soon as someone starts to pontificate in this way, I am apt to cut him off or leave the room, or, if this can't be done gracefully, I simply arrange that sweet vapid smile on my face that was so useful during the trial but that so infuriates Dr. Cole. After all, I have already taken the measure of my own insignificance, and I survived.

When we are babies...we need an authoritative figure to guide and take care of us. We ask no questions about that authority and imagine that the small circumference of family life is the limit of the universe...As we mature, our horizon expands and we begin to question. This continues until we either throw over our creators--our parents--for good and take their place as the creative force in our lives or find replacements for them because the terror and responsibility are too great. People go one way or the other, and this accounts for all of the great personal and political divides throughout history.

I wondered if all a person could hope for was illusion and luck, for I was forced to conclude that the world was fundamentally and appallingly dangerous. It is a lesson I will never forget.

I had been allowed to believe in man's innate goodness for the twenty-two years of my life, and I had hoped to carry the belief with me to my grave.