“Its walls were mirrored, its tables marble, its espresso feral, its pastry stale.”

“There were in life rarely, if ever, "right" decisions, never perfect ones, only the best to be made under the circumstances.”

“Jealousy clings to love's underside like bats to a bridge.”

“Sorrow can be a bully.”

“Nothing in life gets dropped without someone else having to pick it up.”

“Stumble on joy"--the phrase had knocked something loose in him. Joy: What did it feel like? Trying to remember, he was overcome by longing. He knew satisfaction, the exhilaration of success, contentment, and happiness to the extent he could identify it. But joy?”

“[s]he was a compulsive pessimist, always looking for the soft brown spot in the fruit, pressing so hard she created it.”