“I will be very careful the next time I fall in love, she told herself. Also, she had made a promise to herself that she intended on keeping. She was never going to go out with another writer: no matter how charming, sensitive, inventive or fun they could be. They weren't worth it in the long run. They were emotionally too expensive and the upkeep was complicated. They were like having a vacuum cleaner around the house that broke all the time and only Einstein could fix it. She wanted her next lover to be a broom.”

“Hinged to forgetfulness like a door,she slowly closed out of sight,and she was the woman I loved,but too many times she slept likea mechanical deer in my caresses,and I ached in the metal silenceof her dreams.”

“Vida was sound asleep when I went back to my room. I turned on the light and it woke her up. She was blinking and her face had that soft marble quality to it that beautiful women have when they are suddenly awakened and are not quite ready for it yet. "What's happening?" she said. "It's another book," she replied, answering her own question. "Yes," I said. "What's it about?" she said automatically like a gentle human phonograph. "It's about growing flowers in hotel rooms.”

“She could remember a time when she thought things could be right with her and Jack. Now it seemed like that was such a long time ago. How could she have ever told herself things were going to be alright? She now knew with every once of her being that there was absolutely nothing left of the man she had once loved.”

“She wore a loose bathrobe that covered up a body that would have won first prize in a beauty contest for cement blocks.....She had a voice that made pearl harbour sound like a lullaby.”

“Like some kind of strange vacuum cleaner I tried to console him. I recited the same old litanies that you say to people when you try to help their broken hearts, but words can't help at all.It's just the sound of another human voice that makes the only difference. There's nothing you're ever going to say that's going to make anybody happy when they're feeling shitty about losing somebody that they love.”

“Excuse me, I said. I thought you were a trout stream.I'm not, she said.”