“And I also know that this is why love allows us to be so cruel to the beloved: so that the beloved doesn't make the mistake of loving us again or loving us for the first time.”

“... I also empathized, because she'd tried to do these things out of love, and because she had bumbled the attempt, and I suppose this - the ability to empathize with the people we hate - is exactly the quality that makes us human beings, which makes you wonder why anyone would want to be one.”

“When he did that, I didn't hate him anymore, I really didn't, and maybe this is why people do so many hateful things to the people that who love them: because it's so easy to stop hating someone if you've already started loving them.”

“But then again, I was pretty certain I'd make more mistakes, so I didn't dwell on the one I'd just made too long. This is another thing I'll put in my arsonist's guide: if you make a mistake, don't dwell on it too long, because you'll make more of them.”

“A tricky bit of business, this believing in someone else. So tricky that we would never do it, if we did not want someone, someday, to believe in us, too.”

“When I was a boy, I would read those postcards and know exactly why my father was doing what he was doing: he was taking a stab at greatness, that is, if greatness is simply another word for doing something different from what you were already doing--or maybe greatness is the thing we want to have so that other people will want to have us, or maybe greatness is merely the grail for our unhappy, striving selves, the thing we think we need but don't and can't get anyway.”

“Love is not wanting the thing you love to ever end.”