“I pedaled as fast as I could... as if I were escaping from longing, from innocence, from her. Time has passed, and I have loved many women. And as they've held me close... and asked if I will remember them, I've said, "Yes, I will remember you." But the only one I've never forgotten is the one who never asked... Malena”

“There are things I need to ask her. Not what happened, back then in the time I lost, because now I know that. I need to ask her why. If she remembers. Perhaps she’s forgotten the bad things, what she said to me, what she did. Or she does remember them, but in a minor way, as if remembering a game, or a single prank, a single trivial secret, of the kind girls tell and then forget. She will have her own version. I am not the centre of her story, because she herself is that. But I could give her something you can never have, except from another person: what you look like from outside. A reflection. This is part of herself I could give back to her. We are like the twins in old fables, each of whom has been given half a key.”

“I've never had time to read. But no one ever kept me from finishing a novel I loved.”

“I remembered this one time that I never told anybody about. The time we were walking. Just the three of us. I was in the middle. I don't remember where we were walking to or where we were walking from. I just remember the season. I just remember walking between them and feeling for the first time that I belonged somewhere”

“There are plastic bags with zippers on them. I've seen them in commercials," Dragos said to her. He snapped his fingers, trying to remember the name. "You put food in them.""Ziploc bags?" she asked in a cautious voice.He pointed at her. "Yes. I want one.”

“I believe that half the trouble in the world comes from people asking 'What have I achieved?' rather than 'What have I enjoyed?' I've been writing about a subject I love as long as I can remember--horses and the people associated with them, anyplace, anywhere, anytime. I couldn't be happier knowing that young people are reading my books. But even more important to me is that I've enjoyed so much the writing of them.”