“I wonder if the reason I tend to say yes to everything is because I deeply believe that I can survive anything.”

“I think about stories and their logic and wonder if there can be any such thing as simply "there is a book.”

“I can't fuck up his whole life and take away everything that means something to him just because I think I've found my soul mate.' 'Yeah, but...' 'Yeah, but. I know. Having found my soul mate, how cruel is it for me to stay with Bob, pretending I feel more for him than I do and preventing him from going out and finding someone who loves him the way I love Mark?' 'You can't be responsible for other people's feelings,”

“I wonder at what point my life swerved to avoid that, and if that life would have been nicer than the one I've got.”

“If you threw a brick at someone you would be responsible for them feeling pain, presumably,' Libby said. 'But if you do the right thing and it makes someone feel bad, isn't that their problem? Then again, how do you even know what the right thing is? Who decides?' 'It's so confusing. I am sure about Mark, but I was sure about Bob before that, and Richard before that. Maybe Mark isn't for ever, I just think he is now when I can't have him. I have to face up to this about myself. I fall in love like that.' She clicked her fingers. 'I always have. For other people, love is like some rare orchid that can only grow in one place under a certain set of conditions. For me it's like bindweed. It grows with no encouragement at all, under any conditions, and just strangles everything else. Good metaphor, huh?”

“But I quite like the way you can talk about science without necessarily using mathematics, but using metaphors instead.”

“Some writers, notably Anton Chekov, argue that all characters must be admirable, because once we've looked at anyone deeply enough and understood their motivation we must identify with them rather than judge them.”