“How strange it all was. Wouldn't it be a lot less messy if everyone just stayed with the people they married in the first place?”

“Books were a lot less messy than orgasms.”

“When everything gets messy and brutal and complicated, the truth is the first thing to go, isn't it? People try to shade it or spin it or fix it. As though fixing the facts will make the situation less messy and brutal and complicated.”

“The trouble is people leave too much to luck. They get married and then trust to luck. They should be sure in the first place.”

“Everyone marries the Duke of Westminster. There are a lot of duchesses, but only one Coco Chanel.”

“Even now, I have a lot of trouble understanding why Sharon stayed – or why she married me in the first place, come to think of it. I mean, she was actually afraid of me half the time. And the truth was I was afraid of me, too. Afraid of what I’d do to myself or, even worse, to someone else.”