“She seems sort of lost.'I thought, Lost how? How am I lost? Suddenly I felt lost.”

“I felt I couldn't lose anything else, but just then I realized I already had: I'd lost the hope that I would ever be loved in just that way again.”

“He tells me that the best man I will ever find will be attracted to other women. I hear this as another fact I am too old not to know. More proof of how unprepared I am to love anyone.”

“I said, "What's your goal in life?" and winced at how corny and earnest I sounded.He looked away. He thought. "I guess I'm trying to become a better man than the one I'm hardwired to be.”

“He gives me a kiss that barely touches my lips – it means nothing or everything. After he’s gone, I think, Happy birthday to me.Jack says, ‘That was the guy?’‘That was him.’Jake shakes his head.‘What?’‘He’s not for you,’ he says.I say, ‘How do you know?’ but what I mean is, How do you know?‘He’s like Ashley Wilkes,’ he says. ‘Any one of these guys is Rhett-ier than he is.’Again, I ask my benignly inflected, ‘How do you know?’‘How do I know?’ he says, tackling me into a bear hug. ‘How do I know? I know, that’s how I know.”

“He gazed at me. "You've grown up honey." It felt good to hear it. I thought maybe he was right. Then it occurred to me that if I really had grown up I wouldn't want to be told.”

“Later, lying in bed, I wonder if Dena knows about her father. I decide that she probably does, and I imagine how I would feel if I knew that my father was unfaithful to my mother.Then I remember Richard, and I think that marriage might not mean much to Dena. I can't really blame her: She learned about marriage from her parents, just as I did from mine. For all I know, sleeping with Richard is just Dena's way of trying not to be her mother.”