“These are the times when we aficionados of the gas stove know we are on the side of God.”

“And I realized that, for this night at least, I didn't much care if anyone was the marrying kind or not - not even me. Who could tell? We none of us knew for sure WHAT kind we were, exactly, but as long as were the kind that could sit around eating together and having a lovely time, that was enough.”

“There are times with your friends when you just have to put their whole mess out of your mind for a while.”

“My brother wrote another refrigerator magnet poem, when he was probably nineteen or twenty: 'When the flood comes/ I will swim to a symphony/ go by boat to some picture show/ and maybe I will forget about you.' How did he know way, way back then? How is it I know only now?”

“Which just goes to show, I guess, that dinner parties are like everything else - not as fragile as we think they are.”

“You know that dejection that comes upon you when you realize that the person you're talking to might as well be from Jupiter, for all the chance you have of making them get what you're saying? I hate that.”

“So the end may be a long time coming, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a way of sneaking up on you.”