"Every one needs to talk to some one," the woman said. "Before we had religion and other nonsense. Now for every one there should be some one to whom one can speak frankly, for all the valor that one could have one becomes very alone."

One thing was for sure: Barbara Bush was willing to speak her mind. That was something she did quite frequently in later years. Mother’s quick wit and self-deprecating humor endeared her to millions of Americans. Her willingness to speak her mind stood in contrast to some tightly scripted political spouses. As a result of her wide following, she helped many Americans understand and love her husband.

She couldn't have told you whether it was because she was afraid, or because such a voice in the darkness seemed of necessity a boon; but she listened to him as she had never listened before; his words dropped deep into her soul.

Her old thoughts were going to come in handy now, but new words would have to be made and said to fit them.

Her words, her jumbled, mad thoughts tamed or simply broken, made language, and she took another drag off the Lucky, exhaled, and read the last sentence aloud.

Speak your latent conviction. . . Else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

He began talking to an imagined woman, achieving an eloquence that was never his when he was face to face with anyone else.

Such were her thoughts, though she lacked the words to express them.

She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversations in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.

It occurred to me that everyone’s story matters to themselves, so the more I listened, the more she wanted to talk.

It is an extraordinary act of courage,' said Tulas Shorn, 'to come to know a stranger's pain.

As she spoke, her voice never wavered; it was the voice of someone who has forced a larger meaning out of tragedy.

Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much.

Sometimes people will only confide in someone they trust, but other times they need the listener to be a complete stranger.