“Wives' at these events had limited choices: either they could stay by their husbands' sides to coach them on other guests' names and remind them of the ages of their children when asked, or they could congregate with other wives in a corner, like pedestrians caught in a rain shower with only one umbrella between them.”

“At my worst, I even resented Nic because an addict, at least when high, has a momentary respite from his suffering. There is no similar relief for parents or children or husbands or wives or others who love them.”

“Believe me, if all wives whose husbands had affairs left them, we would only have divorced women in this country.”

“Eventually, I reached the other side of the chasm and understood the differences between the two men. I no longer hated Daddy: he had been a shitty father and a shitty husband - a man who's made two bad choices based on lust and coveting and then been too weak either to live with them or undo them. But he had not been a rapist.”

“the harsh truth of every relationship, even between those who love each other, like fathers and sons and daughters, or husbands and wives, is that the love is always unequal.”

“She had read about people-where? she could not remember this either- who refused to name their children for several weeks, feeling them to not be yet of the earth, suspeded still between two worlds.”