“The moans made with pleasure during love making become much louder with displeasure during separation.”

“...there remained a strange formality between them, and her pleasure in his presence felt too much like missing him had felt during the last week.”

“Trying to make someone love you is like trying to climb uphill during an avalanche.”

“And what made these heart-to-hearts possible--you might even say what made the whole friendship possible during that time--was this understanding we had that anything we told each other during these moments would be treated with careful respect: that we'd honor confidences, and that no matter how much we rowed, we wouldn't use against each other anything we'd talked about during those sessions.”

“It is impossible not to make mistakes during a war.”

“Somewhere I’d heard, or invented perhaps, that the only pleasures found during a waning moon are misfortunes in disguise. Superstition aside, I avoid pleasure during the waning or absent moon out of respect for the bounty this world offers me. I profit from great harvests in life and believe in the importance of seasons.”