“But I can no longer ready any faith's Napoleonic saber rattling without picturing smoking rubble on cable news. I guess if I had to pick a spiritual figurehead to possess the deed to the entirety of Earth, I'd go with Buddha, but only because he wouldn't want it.”

“I guess if I had to pick a spiritual figurehead to possess the deed to the entirety of Earth, I'd go with Buddha, but only because he wouldn't want it.”

“I love you. No doubts. I can smile now because It was so true: I never had any doubts; I always knew he was it for me, I knew he was all I'd ever want”

“Alex- Alec, if I had given you the impression I had accepted the idea of your death, I can only apologize. I tried to, I thought I had- and yet still I pictured having you for fifty, sixty more years. I thought I might be ready to let you go. But it's you, and I realize now that I won't be any more ready to lose you than I am right now. Which is not at all.”

“I know you have bad news,” I say softly. “I’m ready for it.”But that’s not true. One is never ready. You just lie and say you are and hope you can take the hit on the chin without going down.”

“If only it were possible to love without injury – fidelity isn’t enough: I had been faithful to Anne and yet I had injured her. The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation. In a way I was glad that my wife had struck out at me again – I had forgotten her pain for too long, and this was the only kind of recompense I could give her. Unfortunately the innocent are always involved in any conflict. Always, everywhere, there is some voice crying from a tower. ”