“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.”

“Love is not the demand of another, nor is it the need of another. It is all-embracing acceptance, is it not?”

“..and the peaceful feeling that helps him realize that whatever you see around you, whatever holds and loves you, is who you truly are.”

“It's one thing to listen only to yourself and believe in the superiority of your ideas. It's quite another to look down upon those who don't share them.”

“I think she was afraid to love sometimes. I think it scared her. She was the type to like things that were concrete, like the ocean. Something you could point to and know what it was. I think that's why she always struggled with God. And I think that's why she also struggled with love. She couldn't touch it. She couldn't hold on to it and make sure it never changed.”

“The theme for me is love and the lack of it. We all want that and we don't know how to get it, and everything we do is some kind of attempt to capture it for ourselves.”

“I know,' Jed says. I'm thrown over his shoulder and I can feel how his body shakes and I know that he is crying. For me, for Beth. And I wonder if there was ever a crueler world than this one that forces us to kill the people we love most.”