“There was a lot they didn’t tell you about death, she had discovered, and one of the biggies was how long it took the ones you loved most to die in your heart.”

“I did not know then that there are those you love no matter how much they hurt you, no matter how many years have passed since you felt them in the morning. I did not know how long it took to get over such a love, and that even when you did, when you loved again, you would always carry a sliver of it in your stitched-together heart. I did not know that you could love them in death, and that if one day they returned to you in a dream or half sleep, you might hold up your hand as she had done, because life and time had changed you.”

“Here's what no one ever tells you about love: it hurts, having your heart broken”

“She nods. You're good for the ones you love. You want to be good for the ones you love, because you know that your time with them will end up being too short, no matter how long it is.”

“Of course, when you fall out of love, it’s rarely about just one failure or one betrayal, is it? . . . How does it happen? All those things you once loved about each other are replaced by other things that remind you of something you hate until you’re always setting each other off, and what you share is a battleground. In the end, the failure turns out to be less about sex—which surprises most men—and more about loss of respect. One morning your partner looks at you across the bed and wonders at the waywardness of her own heart—how, she asks herself, can she feel such disdain for someone she once felt such love?”

“You didn’t discover a secret passage into someone’s palace and not tell them everything you knew about it.”