“What he was saying was that he really wanted to be part of her life. The good days and the bad ones, too.”

“I’m just me – half a family, no awareness whatsoever about style, or what’s in and what’s out. I’m not like the lizards. I don’t really even know how I’m supposed to be with a guy that I’m attracted to. I’ve never been a game player. I don’t know how to be coy… or sexy… or whatever. I have no finesse.”

“They walked along in silence, that silence just before parting where everything has been left unsaid and it is too late now to say it. Fern felt as if her stomach was full of words, words burning to be spoken, but her lips refused to unclose and the words remained inside her, seething, like a bad case of indigestion. ”

“Was he willing to blend into the life of another human being for the rest of his days, and have hers blend into his? That, of course, was the Bible’s bottom line on marriage: one flesh. Not separate entities, not two autonomous beings merely coming together at dinnertime or brushing past one another in the hallway, holding on to their singleness, guarding against invasion. One flesh!" (p. 207).”

“..he was 'nuts about her', as the parlance of the day had it, as if it were generally recognised that love and madness are adjoining rooms with extremely porous walls.”

“A man lives his life only when he is marching, i thought, when he keeps marching onwards at any price. When he stops marching onwards, he decays. The joy of life is the joy of the experience that comes from feeling one's own strength.”

“If somebody already is, then he should see to it that he be. And when he sees that he be and is, then he must make sure, that he is what he is, and is not what he isn't - as is the case in most cases.”