“There’s an old adage: the sensation of drowning reminds you of everything you ever knew about swimming.”

“Of course, when you fall out of love, it’s rarely about just one failure or one betrayal, is it? . . . How does it happen? All those things you once loved about each other are replaced by other things that remind you of something you hate until you’re always setting each other off, and what you share is a battleground. In the end, the failure turns out to be less about sex—which surprises most men—and more about loss of respect. One morning your partner looks at you across the bed and wonders at the waywardness of her own heart—how, she asks herself, can she feel such disdain for someone she once felt such love?”

“The thing about hitting bottom is that, in the middle of it, sometimes you don’t know if you’re really hitting bottom or just bouncing off ledges on your way further down.”

“At first, he talked about the flowers in the garden behind his country house in Surrey. His voice still had its Midlands accent but was soft now and barely audible. He knew the plants by name and took a few minutes with each of them: ageratum, coreopsis, echinacea, rudbeckia. The yarrow, he said, had rose-red flowers on two-foot stems. Achillea millefolium, the plant Achilles used to heal wounds.”

“Take a seat, Charlie,” he said. “I’ll kill you in a few minutes. It’ll be good for you.”

“The problem with escaping is that we leave behind us, even among those we love, different versions of the truth and everything we couldn’t bring ourselves to say.”

“Sometimes, however much you plan, however many precautions you take, something happens, and in a minute the world is changed. After that, you’re the person on the other side of that minute.”