“They walked on rather aimlessly. He hoped she wouldn't notice he was touched, because he wouldn't have known how to explain why. Here lay the great discrepancy between aesthetic truth and sleazy reality.”

“Yes," she moaned, and then nodded, just in case he didn't get the picture, because if he didn't, dear God, she was going to drown him in the bathtub. And wouldn't that be embarrassing to explain to the police and all the family?”

“Chris loved you," I said, and the truth of it was almost a physical pain. She wouldn't look at me. "No he didn't. And he would have figured it out eventually. So would you? Then where would I have been?""Not here.”

“If the Good Lord intended for us to walk, he wouldn't have invented rollar skates.”

“...things are the way they are in our universe because if they weren't, we wouldn't be here to notice.”

“So why are you here?"He lifted his hands and made as if to lay them on her arms, but just before they touched he stopped and let them fall. Then, simply, as though it were all the explanation she could ever need, he said, "Because I love you.”