“There is something there. Not desire, not romance, but acquiescence. She understands; she forgives. this is love, he thinks with a settling sigh. This is love. The duration is of no consequence We love to know we are known. We ache to know it.”

“What is he aching to do? What are we all aching to do? What do we want?” She didn’t know. She yawned. She was sleepy. It was too much. Nobody could tell. Nobody would ever tell. It was all over. She was eighteen and most lovely, and lost.”

“She was not sure if she would want him to have known; we do not always wish for those for whom we long to know that we long for them, especially if the longing is impossible, or inappropriate. . . to be loved by the unlovable was not something that most people could cope with.”

“Works of art are meant to be lived with and loved, and if we try to understand them, we should try to understand them as we try to understand anyone—in order to know them better, not in order to know something else.”

“If God were a theory, the study of theology would be the way to understand Him. But God is alive and in need of love and worship. This is why thinking of God is related to our worship. In an analogy of artistic understanding, we sing to Him before we are able to understand Him. We have to love in order to know. Unless we learn how to sing, unless we know how to love, we will never learn to understand Him".”

“My mother looks at me with love and understanding, and I realize: she knows what my father did. She knows what I want. She knows and even though she would not destroy a tissue sample or love someone who is not her Match, she still loves us, even though we have done those things.”