“She had her reasons. Not that they were the same as anybody else's reasons.”

“People cry at weddings for the same reason they cry at happy endings: because they so desperately want to believe in something they know is not credible.”

“Only a girl like thiscan know what's happened to you.If she were here she wouldreach out her arms towardsyou now, and touch youwith her absent handsand you would feel nothing, but you would betouched all the same.”

“The reason they invented coffins, to lock the dead in, preserve them, they put makeup on them; they didn't want them spreading or changing into anything else. The stone with the name and date was on them to weight them down.”

“I forgave her, of course. I always did; I had to, because there were only the two of us. The two of us on our thorn-encircled island, waiting for rescue; and, on the mainland, everyone else.”

“These things sneak up on him for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency.”

“It must have been then that I began to lose faith in reasonable argument as the sole measure of truth.”