“Still, what I want in my lifeis to be willingto be dazzled—to cast aside the weight of factsand maybe evento float a littleabove this difficult world.”

“I feel myself floating without the weight of him on my body.”

“Part of her—a small but defiant part, the part that still remembered her girlhood fantasies—desperately wanted to trust him, but the stronger part remembered how he had thoughtlessly cast her aside. “We can’t always have what we want, Marcus. You must accustom yourself to disappointment.” As I have. The unspoken words hung between them.Marcus’ mouth twitched. “But there you are wrong, my love. I always get what I want.”

“I think that people who stand up for what they believe in, no matter how unpopular, should be celebrated, not cast aside.”

“Though I hadn't had a stroke like Uncle Yuri, it was still difficult for me to express what was in my heart. I wanted to tell her that I loved her, that she was the most important person in the world to me, that I was truly sorry for having lied to her about Liberty. Instead, I asked her what she wanted for dinner.”

“What I believe is that lifeis music and fabulous foliage,but it's also cancer and wars. That's just how it is. Maybe God could do better. But shit, so could we. ”