“A play is like a balance, you see. If, on one end of the arm, you place a certain quantity of loyalty and cleverness and strong will, on the other end you need an equal weight of something else to offset it.”

“You imagine that there's no use struggling against fate, that she will always have her way, no matter what we do. But don't you see? It's our very efforts to cheat fate, or to change it, that make things come to pass in the way they were meant to.”

“This business of friendship was a curious thing, almost as difficult to learn as the busuness of acting. Sometimes you were expected to tell the truth, to express your thoughts and your feelings, and then other times what was wanted was a lie, a bit of disguise.”

“It occurred to me, then, how nearly real life resembles the first rehearsal of a play. We are all of us stumbling through it, doing our best to say the proper lines and make the proper moves, but not quite comfortable yet in the parts we've been given. Still, like players who trust that -despite all evidence to the contrary- the whole mess will make sense eventually, we keep on going, hoping that somehow things will work out for the best.”

“A little fear is good for a fellow, it keeps him from getting over-confident.”

“I hurried after Sam, calling, "You might wait for us!" The last word, though it was but one syllable, covered two octaves, for my voice broke, as it had been doing lately with alarming frequency. Sam turned back with a mischievous grin on his face. "Was that your voice cracking, or were you attempting to yodel?”

“I started to see it Eunice's way. We now had obligations to each other. Our families had failed us, and now we had to form an equally strong and enduring connection to each other. Any gap between us was a failure. Success would come when neither of us knew where one ended and the other began.”