“You are your own worst enemy. If you can learn to stop expecting impossible perfection, in yourself and others, you may find the happiness that has always eluded you.”

“Sometimes life has a cruel sense of humor, giving you the thing you always wanted at the worst time possible.”

“You think you've found the perfect mate and you head for him, blinking as fast as you can, and then you find out he's a Bic lighter.”

“A woman could do that to you - reach that place in your soul where the best and worst of you was kept. And once she was there, she owned that place and never left.”

“No one can tell you what your path is . . . but someday you'll discover it. . . and it won't be at all what you expected.”

“You'll be my wife," he said inexorably."You want to own me!" she accused, trying to crawl away from him."Yes." He flung her down on the bed and flattened his weight on her. As he spoke, his hot breath fannedher mouth and chin. "Yes. I want other people to look at you and know you're mine. I want you to takemy name and my money. I want you tolive with me. I want to be inside you . . . part of your thoughts . . . your body . . . all of you. I want you totrust me. I want to give you whatever elusive, impossible, goddamned mysterious thing it is you need inorder to be happy. Does that frightenyou? Well, it frightens the hell out of me. Don't you think I'd stop feeling this way if I could? It's not as ifyou're the easiest woman in the world!!”

“I want to give you whatever elusive, impossible, goddamned mysterious thing it is you need in order to be happy. Does that frighten you? Well, it frightens the hell out of me. Don't you think I'd stop feeling this way if I could? It's not as if you're the easiest woman in the world to—" He checked himself suddenly.”