“She technically apologized yesterday, but it was one of those married-people apologies, more of a tactical move than anything else, a way of moving on with things.”

“Married silence is a specific kind of silence, typically one in which the woman goes mute while the man pretends as if it's perfectly normal that she hasn't spoken in hours.”

“She rarely lets me off the hook, holding me to a different standard of emotional intelligence than the other men in her life - even my Brothers. She allows them to behave like Gary, docilely going about their lives, content and happy and completely oblivious to the sticky, ugly things just a few inches below the surface of everything.”

“I've been thinking about your Father a lot lately, and I've realized something. I married Gary specifically for the fact that he wasn't Curtis. If your Father has an opposite, it's Gary. I just need to decide if I want to spend the rest of my life with someone I married by default.”

“That's me, giving myself a tough-love speech. I'm going to start doing that more often, I've decided. One might as well put his inner monologue to good use.”

“The most important people in this man's life - the people who have mattered to him most - aren't my Mother or his wives or me or Anna or Allie. The people who matter most are the people in his head. That is loneliness.”

“I instantly like people who laugh at my jokes. It's a weakness of mine.”