“What kind of trouble was he in now? If he thought I was about to bail him out of something, he was as wrong as a football bat.”

“He backs out the door batting those eyelashes I thought were so sexy when I first met him. Now I want to pluck them out one by one.”

“But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.”

“He was already beginning to understand that what was wrong with his writing was that there was something wrong, something misconceived, about him. If he hadn't become the writer he thought he had it in him to be, it was because he didn't know who he was. And slowly, from his ignominious place at the bottom of the literary barrel, he began to understand who that person might be. He was a migrant. He was one of those who had ended up in a place that was not the place where he began.”

“He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, than a lunatic. But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him: the horror was that he might also be wrong.”

“In my head, Carlisle’s kind eyes did not judge me. I knew that he would forgive me for this horrible act that I would do. Because he loved me. Because he thought I was better than I was. And he would still love me, even as I now proved him wrong.”