“Love is a very light thing. Love is so fragil and frail. You can not hold it in your hand or weigh it on a scale. Cigarette smoke, that's all it is, wispy and curling around. Oh, it takes a lot of love to make a pound.”

“They had a saying: An Arab loves in the order of: his son, his camel, and his wife - but there were times when one was allowed to take precedence over the other!”

“When she remembers to look at herself in a spiritual light, she sees the deep capacity for love this pain has brought her. The realization fills her with wonder. Now she can rise in the morning and greet the new day with eagerness and grace.”

“Everyone is running from something. But if we’re lucky, really lucky, fate intervenes and presents an opportunity to conquer our fears. Only then, if triumphant, can a destiny bestowed become a destiny fulfilled.”

“She expressed an opinion that the happiness of a woman in Paradise is beneath the soles of her husband's feet,' he enlightened humorously, seemingly not at all averse to her obvious desire to be comforted.”

“One measures oncoming old age by its deepening of Proust, and its deepening by Proust. How to read a novel? Lovingly, if it shows itself capable of accomodating one's love; and jealously, because it can become the image of one's limitations in time and space, and yet can give the Proustian blessing of more life.”

“I don't hate you. I love you.""I love you, too. God, it's hell!"They decided to be more sensible. The next day they didn't meet in Widener. Elgin stayed in his room, and at three o'clock the phone rang. "It's me--Caroline.""Oh God, you called. I was praying you would. Where are you?""In the drugstore on the corner." There was silence. "Elgin," she said at last, "did you have any orange juice today?"He ran, down the stairs, along the sidewalk, to the drugstore to have his orange juice.”