“The strangeness of Time. Not in its passing, which can seem infinite, like a tunnel whose end you can't see, whose beginning you've forgotten, but in the sudden realization that something finite, has passed, and is irretrievable.”

“I had forgotten that time wasn't fixed like concrete but in fact was fluid as sand, or water. I had forgotten that even misery can end. ”

“HUSBAND: Is something wrong?BETHIE: Why--why do you ask?HUSBAND: You looked so lonely, suddenly. As if you'd forgotten I'm here.”

“I do what I want to do. It was a brash statement of(her)girlhood. Now she was an adult, the boast seemed quaint. For rarely do you know what you want. Even after you've done it you can't say clearly if that was what you'd wanted or just something that happened to you, like weather.”

“Loneliness is like starvation: you don't realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat.”

“What you call your personality, you know? --it's not like actual bones, or teeth, something solid. It's more like a flame. A flame can be upright, and a flame can flicker in the wind, a flame can be extinguished so there's no sign of it, like it had never been. ”

“... such speculation is like staring into the hot white sun. you know the sun is there but you can't see a thing.”