“Much of Macon's youth was ruled by connotations.”

“Disaster followed disaster... the hero stuck in there, though. Macon had long ago noticed that all adventure movies had the same moral: Perseverance pays. Just once he'd like to see a hero like himself -- not a quitter, but a man who did face facts and give up gracefully when pushing on was foolish.”

“The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning.”

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

“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.”

“I was born with the impression that what happened in books was much for reasonable, and interesting, and real, in some ways, than what happened in life.”

“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.”