“Marriage . . . is not a love affair; it is an ordeal. (92)”

“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”

“This is not my first road trip and it's not my first marriage either. I know that my hissy fit in Fougeres and our bad luck on the road to Bordeaux does not spell doom for either our love affair or our journey. Love affairs are like road trips, and road trips are like love affairs -- from beginning to end the emotions are equally intense, the phases just as predictable. Love and travel. They both have their ups and downs.”

“The end of all things--a book, a life, a summer, a marriage, the last bite of cake, the last of innocence lost, a love affair--is always sad, at least a little bit sad, because it is the end, the end of that.”

“Norman Mailer said there were four stages in a marriage: first the affair then the marriage, then children and then finally the fourth stage, without which you cannot know a woman, the divorce.”

“August. We were arguing. You want love to be like this every day don't you? 92 degrees even in the shade.”