“In truth, there are only two realities: the one for people who are in love or love each other, and the one for people who are standing outside all that.”

“At least with pets, and for all I know, people too, intelligence and quick-wittedness have nothing to do with a talent for being loved, or being kind, nothing at all, less than nothing.”

“At least with pets, and for all I know , people too, intelligence and quick-wittiness have nothing to do with a talent for being loved, or being kind, nothing at all, less than nothing.”

“You can not figure out love without figuring out death, too, but the effort it takes can knock the wind out of you. Love is the first cousin of death, they're acquainted with each other, they go to the same family reunions.”

“What's agitating about solitude is the inner voice telling you that you should be mated to somebody, that solitude is a mistake. The inner voice doesn't care about who you find. It just keeps pestering you, tormenting you--if you happen to be me--with homecoming queens first, then girls next door, and finally anybody who might be pleased to see you now and then at the dinner table and in bed on occasion. You look up from reading the newspaper and realize that no one loves you, and no one burns for you.”

“As the poet says, all happy couples are alike, it's the unhappy ones who create the stories. I'm no longer a story. Happiness has made me fade into real life.”

“The problem with love and God, the two of them, is how to say anything about them that doesn’t annihilate them instantly with the wrong words, with untruth. . . . In this sense, love and God are equivalents. We feel both, but because we cannot speak clearly about them, we end up–wordless, inarticulate—by denying their existence altogether, and, pfffffft, they die.”