“It is not how much you love someone, but who you are when you are with him.”

“I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them.”

“It wasn't what you said", he told her."It was how I felt when you said it".”

“It's true that writing is a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them.”

“It was Serena who'd said that motherhood was much too hard and, when you got right down to it, perhaps not worth the effort.”

“When you come [to a baseball game] in person, you direct your own focus, you know? The TV or the radio men, they might focus on the pitcher when you want to see what first base is doing; and you don't have any choice but to accept it.”

“Why did popular songs always focus on romantic love? Why this preoccupation with first meetings, sad partings, honeyed kisses, heartbreak, when life was also full of children's births and trips to the shore and longtime jokes with friends? Once Maggie had seen on TV where archaeologists had just unearthed a fragment of music from who knows how many centuries B.C., and it was a boys lament for a girl who didn't love him back. Then besides the songs there were the magazine stories and the novels and the movies, even the hair-spray ads and the pantyhose ads. It struck Maggie as disproportionate. Misleading, in fact.”