“She would just be catching up when I'd go again, swimming farther out into life because I still hadn't found a rock to stand on.”

“She kept swimming out into life because she hadn't yet found a rock to stand on.”

“We would not wake up from this nightmare to find out it was someone's real life, and for once that someone wasn't just a poor unlucky nobody in a shack you could forget about. It was our life, the only one we were going to have.”

“I took my time exploring. I savored the first minutes in a new home. Carlos would always go straight to unpacking boxes, looking for the sheets and coffeepot and swearing that we were going to get better organized, while I stepped stealthily over the bare floors, peeking around corners and into alluring doors, which generally turned out to be the broom closet. But there was that thrilling sense that, like a new lover, the place held attributes I had yet to discover. My favorite book as a child was _The Secret Garden_. It's embarrassing to think I'd merrily relocated again and again, accompanying Carlos to the ends of the earth, because of the lure of a possible garret or secret closet. But it might be true.”

“The thing is, it's my own fault. I just can't put up with a person that won't go out of his way for me. And that's what a man is. Somebody that won't go out of his way for you. I bet it says that in the dictionary.”

“There are some who'd hardly lift a finger for kindness, but they would haul up a load of rock to dump on some soul they think's been too lucky.”

“Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky.”