“The person with the bleeding finger doesn't hurt less for the person next to him with the bleeding arm.”

“She is her odd self. The kiln has been fired. She is a person persnickity about keeping her house clean, but not above spitting on her desk to rub out a coffee stain. She will never be an athlete, or a mathematician, or a skinny person, or someone whose heart isn't snagged by the sight of fireflies on a summer night and the lilting cadence of a few good lines of poetry.”

“And in my head, a person who was out walking and walking in the dark comes to a little house with a light on. Waits at the door for a moment, and then goes in. Finds such a welcome that she stays.”

“She understood the specific kind of appreciation that comes to a person witnessing a thing of beauty alone, how the spectacle seems to sit whole inside the soul, undiminished by conversation, by any attempt at translation or persuasion.”

“Did she ever think of that, that things experienced in ways different from hers were equally valuable? That the way that he chose to love her was, in fact, loving her, that the face of love depended on the person giving it?”

“People say you should give until it hurts. I say you should give until it stops hurting. Know what I mean?”

“You must never check for a person's pulse using your thumb, or you'll feel your own heartbeat. Actually, I plan on doing that if I'm the one who's here when Ruth dies. I plan on giving her my heartbeat before I let her go.”