“The twentieth century has built up a powerful set of intellectual shortcuts and devices that help us defend ourselves against moments when clouds suddenly appear to think.”

“it helps that in michigan everyone goes inside from november through april. but from may until october they are outside, on display, and all of a sudden if you are single, you have a window to heaven and no way at all to get in.”

“Every relationship has at least one really good day. What I mean is, no matter how sour things go, there's always that day. That day is always in your possession. That's the day you remember. You get old and you think: well, at least I had that day. It happened once. You think all the variables might just line up again. But they don't. Not always. I once talked to a woman who said, "Yeah, that's the day we had an angel around.”

“An unthinkable thought is not one that hasn't occurred to somebody, nor is it a thought that somebody considers to be wrong. An unthinkable thought threatens a person's entire existence and is therefore subversive and consequently can be thought of and has been thought of, but has been pushed out of the mind's currency and subsumed into its margins where it festers. Dark nights of the soul are lit by inconceivable ideas. Any story may draw its source from the power of an unthinkable thought.”

“Against the odds, they refuse to succeed.”

“Experience and disappointments had made us methodical.”

“She has a winning smile. She wins, she always wins.”