“Each person’s life is dominated by a central event, which shapes and distorts everything that comes after it and, in retrospect, everything that came before.”

“I am yours, too,” I whispered back, and those several minutes were the happiest in my life, eclipsing everything that came before and everything that has come after.”

“If there is a particular time that defined the clear yet inaudible sound of a life beginning to unwind, this was it, the moment before her life began to spin off course, like the point in a novel at which everything that has come before turns and past events reveal their significance. Yet we didn't see it.”

“A belief is a lever that, once pulled, moves almost everything in a person’s life.”

“Divorce is the second worst event in a person’s life. The worst event, of course, is marriage.”

“You end up exhausted and spent, but later, in retrospect, you realize what it all was for. The parts fall into place, and you can see the whole picture and finally understand the role each individual part plays. The dawn comes, the sky grows light, and the colors and shapes of the roofs of houses, which you could only glimpse vaguely before, come into focus.”