“In love there are two things - bodies and words. ”

“The worst thing: to give yourself away in exchange for not enough love.”

“Maybe all there is is just the next thing maybe all there is is just the next thing maybe all there is is just just the next just the next thing maybe all there is is just the next maybe all there is is is just is just the next thing Roslyn's words stuck in her head & she could not stop repeating them Maybe all there is is just the next thing like a Hindu mantra & she was a yogin murmuring her secret prayer Maybe all there is just the next thingShe thought, That's a comfort!”

“Adriana loved even the rank animal smell of the man's body, her sweat-slicked breasts and belly flattened beneath him, and her arms and legs clutching him as a drowning woman might clutch another person to save her life. Don't don't don't don't leave me. DON'T LEAVE ME. As in animal copulation the frenzy is to be locked together not out of sentiment or choice but physical compulsion. As if bolts of electric current ran through both their bodies and would only release them from each other when it ceased.”

“It makes me angry sometimes, it's a visceral thing--how you come to despise your own words in your ears not because they aren't genuine, but because they are; because you've said them so many times, your 'principles,' your 'ideals'--and so damned little in the world has changed because of them.”

“Storytelling is shaped by two contrary, yet complementary, impulses—one toward brevity, compactness, artful omission; the other toward expansion, amplification, enrichment.”

“Because I am in love. Love is a slow bleed.”