“My Oma, my grandmother told me that the best friendships often start with a quarrel. She said there's a closeness that comes from a good healthy fight that you can't get any other way, and I think it must be true. Look at CM and me. Our friendship started with a fistfight and twenty-two years later it's still going strong. The friendship, I mean.”

“Why the hell didn't we just stay friends? That felt reasonably good. We had fun. I could tell him anything. Of course, he never told me very much about himself, but it didn't matter as much then. Now look at us. Throw some sex into the mix and it's like putting too much yeast in bread. It's all very fizzy and light and wonderful, but then is rises too high and can't support it's own weight and the whole thing falls flat.”

“After he died, people would always say to me, "At least you have Wyn". She touches my arm. "But I didn't. There wasn't much left of you. And what there was, you weren't willing to share with me.”

“His expression I remember from the first time I met him. Open, direct. But no longer anonymous. I know certain telling details now. Like he can't stand his brother and he gets one haircut a year. He likes Raymond Chandler and John Irving, Wallce Stegner and Joan Didion. That he loves the blues and songs that tell stories. Riding the ferries just to be on water. His favorite flavor is caramel.”

“I just don't know what's going on here, and when I'm uncomfortable, I get a bit...edgy.”

“There are two kinds of friendship: the beneficial friendship and the erroneous friendship. The erroneous friendship balances on the principle of "the closer we are, the more okay it is for me to say anything I want to you and for me to treat you any way that I want to, and for me to disrespect you and take advantage of you" while a true friendship is rooted in this principle: "the closer we are, the more respect I have for you, the better I will treat you, the higher I will regard you, the more good things I will wish for you." You will know someone is a true friend by basis of observing their actions towards you as the friendship grows deeper. A true friend will continue to hold you in higher and higher regard while the error of a friend will see your goodwill and newfound fondness as basis to do and say whatever he/she wants, that is disrespectful and non-beneficial to you.”

“I later realized that this is my view of passion: It is rooted in genuine friendship. Chemistry may be two strangers exchanging smoldering looks—but passion has to be able to survive at least a twenty-minute conversation!”