“Honestly, William, time?' his mother had snapped. 'Distance? Those things have nothing whatsoever to do with love. Who knows that better than you?”

“The sight made her ache. How can I not touch you? she thought hopelessly, and then she was doing it, her fingers on his wrist. He didn't jump or even look at her, just stopped writing. Neither one of them moved, nothing moved, and the whole thing lasted three or four seconds at most, but when Pen took her hand away and started to breathe again, her chest hurt, as though she had been holding her breath for a very long time.”

“In certain situations, you can't worry about how people will react. You just have to be as honest as you can and let what happens afterward happen.”

“What do you do when you're in love with the last man in the world you can have? You plan a life, a real life, without him.”

“There's a kind of holiness to love, requited or not, and those people who don't receive it with gratitude are arrogant beyond saving.”

“You know what he said? He said that being away from me is less like being away from a person than being away from other people is. I don't know anyone else who would say something like that. And he was right. When we were apart, I missed him all the time, but he didn't feel faraway. He felt closer than the kids at school."...Certain people are like that, I guess. They're together no matter where they are. They just belong to each other.”

“All those films in which the woman doesn't get her man, those films of yearning unsatisfied, hearts unappeased. You like them; I've liked them too. But I'll tell you what: try belonging body and soul to a man who will never belong to you; see how well you like those films then. "Don't ask for the moon-we have the stars!" ... "Pardon me saying so, but fuck the fucking stars!”