“... all his strength gathered in his hips and chest and his arms wrapped around me and his breath jabbed soft and hot in my ear and a note of tenderness was there at the end like a lovely curlicue and I liked him because there was no disguising the honest male gladness that went from his body out to mine.”

“Oy, Jake,” he said, shaking his head, like a benevolent rabbi I’d disappointed with my weak will. “Impatience. Seriously. I know this is hard for you …” He glazed over. Drifted a moment. Went through something in his impenetrable interior … “Actually I do know this is hard for you. I’m sorry. I’m not using my imagination. That was my New Year’s resolution, you know. Work on standing in the other fellow’s shoes. That and to read one poem every day.”

“It's no surprise to him what any government does, least of all his own.”

“He'd sensed the strength she'd called on to haul her sexuality out from under the weight of infertility. In his experience childlessness in women either warped into a dedication to self-hating sexual expertise or formed a subsonic noise of sadness and loss.”

“The Russian drove. New York turned in his seat to make sure I wasn't peeking. He should have been a surfer. His face was full of masculine prettiness and immensely likeable. Which, by horror's law of inverted aesthetics, made me sure we were being taken to our deaths.”

“Once you've stopped loving someone breaking his or her heart's just an unpleasant chore you have to get behind you. My God, you really don't love me anymore, do you? No matter your decency the victim's incredulity's potentially hilarious. You manage not to laugh.”

“Nothing apparently, disturbed the mans air of having his mind on something more important than you. You wanted to slap him.”