“It's hard loving those who don't much like themselves: "If you're so great, why would you think I'm so great.”

“For many, the point of marriage isn't so much to be in love as to stop having to think of love.”

“A great writer picks up on those things that matter. It’s almost like their radar is attuned to the most significant moments.”

“Love is an incurable disease. In love, there is permanent suffering. Those who love and those who are happy are not the same.”

“Politics is so difficult, it's generally only people who aren't quite up to the task who feel convinced they are.”

“Heartache may be bad for the soul, but it's great for bookshops. It's when we are at our lowest romantic ebb that we are likely to do the bulk of our life's reading. Adolescents who can't get a date are in a uniquely privileged position: they will have the perfect chance to get grounding in world literature. There is perhaps an important connection between love and reading, there is perhaps a comparable pleasure offered by both.A feeling of connection may be at the root of it. There are books that speak to us, no less eloquently—but more reliably—than our lovers. They prevent the morose suspicion that we do not fully belong to the human species, that we lie beyond comprehension. Our embarrassments, our sulks, our feelings of guilt, these phenomena may be conveyed on a page in a way that affords us with a sense of self-recognition. The author has located words to depict a situation we thought ourselves alone in feeling, and for a few moments, we are like two lovers on an early dinner date thrilled to discover how much they share (and unable to touch much of the seafood linguine in front of them, so busy are they fathoming the eyes opposite), we may place the book down for a second and stare at its spine with a wry smile, as if to say, "How lucky I ran into you.”

“The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.”