“Alexia figured, delightedly, that this meant he did, in fact, tend to traipse around his private apartments in the altogether. Marriage was becoming more and more of an attractive prospect.”

“The lover seeks in marriage his private felicity and perfection, with no prospective end; and nature hides in his happiness her own ends, namely, progeny, or the perpetuity of the race.”

“It is also true that the less competent a person is in a given domain, the more he will tend to overestimate his abilities. This often produces an ugly marriage of confidence and ignorance that is very difficult to correct for.”

“I looked from face to face, exaggerating flaws and reminding myself that these boys did not like me. The hope was that I might crush any surviving atom attraction, but as has been the case for my entire life, the more someone dislikes me the more attractive he becomes.”

“We tend to match the emotions of those around us. For example, we’re more prone to become stressed when we’re around someone who is high-strung. And we’re more likely to be in a good mood when others around us are laughing.”

“I’m just saying that his card-burning would have meant far more, on the day he did it, if he hadn’t already incinerated his life.”