The Company of Women

"I admire the view I have chosen. This is the greatest gift: to choose a life one can admire oneself for living...I wait for the surprises of my body, its inevitable lapses and decay. But I wait free of terror, even with some interest. I hope to be awake for my own death."

I had to push myself through Mary Gordan's novel, The Company of Women, but it was worth it in the end, just these few lines from one of her female characters, made it golden.