“Then we lapse into silence. It's these silences that do damage, that reveal glimpses of the distressed foundation struggling under the weight of 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.”

“Sonya's a real person, like your Mother. Thirty years ago, that was your Mother's biggest flaw in my eyes, and now that's the thing I love most about Sonya. It's funny how things end, isn't it?”

“This house has endured three of my Dad's four wives, and so over the last few decades it's been a home-size mood ring, changing to the styles and temperaments of its female inhabitants.”

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

“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.”

“I have to speak carefully now because I have this strange habit of imitating British people without even realizing that I'm doing it.”