“Is that what I wanted? To be in the middle of something complicated and dramatic? To be a cheerleader for someone else’s romance? Or to have a romance of my own?”

“As we stood there, chest high in water, I felt like I was in the middle of my own romance novel.”

“Romance takes place in the middle distance. Romance is looking in at yourself through a window clouded with dew. Romance means leaving things out: where life grunts and shuffles, romance only sighs.”

“What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance of art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind is that it leaves one so unromantic.”

“I don't want romance and stolen kisses and sweetness and hand holding. I want something so big it's like two planets colliding, with an aftershock that I feel for the rest of my life.”

“I'm not sure I ever want to get married. I'm neither messing around while waiting nor looking for some "real thing." What I want is much more complicated. I want somebody I can talk to about books, who would be my friend, and why couldn't we have sex as well if we wanted to? (And used contraception.) I'm not looking for romance. Lord Peter and Harriet would seem a pretty good model to me.”