“Now, alone on the roof, Valentine looked at her shoes and wished people would either stay or go away, but not constantly coming back and leaving again.”

“Chet suddenly wished she had quit teaching the class because of him, that he’d had any effect on her at all.”

“I baptize you in the name of the conservation of energy. What comes around goes around.”

“He was acting like the man he wanted to be, in hopes that he could become him. He would keep acting until he couldn't stand it anymore, and then he would be the man he was.”

“He held his hands tightly together and cursed his daughter for bringing the terrible world, with its humiliation and longing, back to his door.”

“Yvette had never talked about her marriage - she was a smart girl, and she knew you had no right to complain about someone you got all the way to the altar with. You made that choice, even if you were a child when you did it, and the marriage vow was sacred.”

“At the simplicity of the gesture, he felt a pang: the raw nerve of his loneliness exposed.”