“I believe I want adult sanity, which seems to me the only unalloyed form of heroism available today.”

“I do want to believe in love. I want all of its trappings, and if it costs me my sanity and a very good divorce lawyer, so be it.”

“Nobody believes me when I say that my long book is an attempt to create a world in which a form of language agreeable to my personal aesthetic might seem real. But it is true.”

“We three belong to the Middle Ages. We have this need of heroism, and there is no place for such feelings in modern life. That is our tragedy. Once I wanted to be a saint. It seemed the only absolute act left to do, for what is most powerful in me is the craving for purity, greatness.”

“I sometimes worried that the more instinctive forms of love were not so available to you. That easy maternal devotion, for instance, that seemed so natural in some women, and which, as we spoke of from time to time, was something you had to struggle to feel. [p. 189]”

“They say that rape is the only crime in which the victim has to prove her innocence. And I want you to know, I believe in your innocence. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”