“Actually, I’m glad I’m not rich. I’ve gotta believe that it’s harder to die if you are. Not only do you lose possession of all those assets, all that cash and those stocks and bonds and cars and antiques and silver and paintings and vacation homes, but in those final days and weeks there can be no denying that a tremendous amount of your life was spent accumulating and fussing over all those assets, time that could have been spent with family and friends or fishing or traveling...”

“So who is better off, those who share love long enough to see which parts inevitably fade or those who lose their love when it is still pristine? I think each is lonely in a different place, though if you lose your love while it is still perfect you at least have a clear explanation for your grief, while if it gradually crumbles in your hands you do not.”

“I spent all day wandering up and down the hallways, staring at the Mona Lisa and Canova’s 'Psyche and Cupid' and the 'Venus de Milo' and Caravaggio’s 'The Death of the Virgin' and hundreds of other works in all shapes and sizes and colors. Just before I was about to leave, I was staring at Michelangelo’s 'The Dying Slave', and I suddenly realized that every single work I had seen expressed the same thing, the same intense longing for beauty and immortality and justice and compassion. It was as though all of these artists from throughout history were there in those long hallways crying out the same anguished plea in a thousand different languages.”

“Maybe our relationships--love--can save us, at least enough so that our lives are finally worthwhile, even with all the rotten misery and dying.”

“Like most bookworms I read so as not to be alone, which often annoys those who are trying to make conversation with me.”

“Why does the longing for love have to be so acute, like a desperate thirst? Is it because love is wanting to be saved and we can never really be saved? Maybe love is really born of our fears. Love is the heart’s desire for a painkiller; a tearful plea for a great big epidural. Yes that’s it: love is the only anesthesia that really works. And so people with broken hearts are really those who are just coming to, and if you’ve ever seen someone come out of general anesthesia, you know that it looks a lot like the beginnings of a broken heart.”

“How much are we the product of our faces and how much are they the product of our personalities? I’ve known people whose faces rested naturally in a smile and I’m certain their lives were much different because of that.”