“Doc still loved true things but he knew that it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress.”

“Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?”

“Could a love of that magnitude die? If it was true love, could it ever die? Was there such a thing as true love?”

“As compromised as their marriage might be, part of her still believed in her vows. She loved the man he’d been, and she loved the man she knew he could be.”

“Cabby was saying“someday”… someday Tony would love him. He hoped it mightbe true. Perhaps Cabby knew things that he didn’t”

“Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one.”