“And how could anyone consent to give up the smell of open books, old or new?”

“He can't really love anyone, you know, and in the end such people are always alone, no matter how much other people once loved them.”

“It was good to walk into a library again; it smelled like home.”

“It's funny; in this era of e-mail and voice mail and all those things that even I did not grow up with, a plain old paper letter takes on amazing intimacy.”

“He was my husband, my apartment mate, my soul mate, the father of the little plant in my confused soil, the lover who had made me adore his body without inhibition after my years of relative solitude, the person for whom I'd given up my old self.”

“You are a total stranger and you want to take my library book.”

“In those days, I still thoroughly enjoyed the romance I called "by myself"; I didn't know yet how it gets lonely, picks up a sharp edge later on that ruins a day now and then-- ruins more than that, if you're not careful.”