“He was the kind of man everyone would fall in love with, even if they didn't want to.”

“but she realized that she wanted him to know her. She wanted him to understand her, if only because she had strange sense that he was the kind of man she could fall in love with, even if she didn't want to.”

“If a woman could take care of herself, would she still need a man? Would she even want one? And if she didn't want a man, what kind of woman would she be? Would she even be a woman? Because it seemed if you were a woman, the only thing you were really supposed to want was a man.”

“Because Ali did not want to see the deep pools of his kind teacher's eyes and fall into them. He didn't know how to swim.”

“Even then, when the hike was perfect, I would wonder, 'Now what?' And take a picture. Take another picture. Like a man with a photogenic girlfriend he didn't love.”

“That he would love her no matter what she told him, and that he was the kind of man who loved her already and would love her forever.”