“If a situation requires swearing to God it is — by definition — extreme.”

“For the people of my country," Renato said, "water is everything: love, life, religion... even God.""It is like that for me too," I said. "In English we call that a metaphor.""Of course," said Renato, "and water is the most abundant metaphor on earth.”

“Find yourself a place in the universe,' she said, 'a place where the dirt feels like goodness under your feet. Take the right picture and a man will walk into it. If you can bear him even a little, then for a while let him stay.”

“People are supposed to accumulate, I thought, as they get older, but I seem to be sloughing off, like a person wrapped in a hundred layers of cellophane, tearing one layer off at a time, trying to get down to me.”

“I wanted her to see that the only life worth living is a life full of love; that loss is always part of the equation; that love and loss conjoined are the best opportunity we get to live fully, to be our strongest, our most compassionate, our most graceful selves. ”

“Do you write novels?" I said."Novels, Lord no," she said. "I can't even stay married.”

“The more important question, of course, was what the new Lucy would do, and even though I was pretty sure the old Lucy wouldn't be around much anymore, I was a little bit afraid the new Lucy hadn't yet shown up.”