“No wonder you want to be a writer. How can you not, with all that behind you? You practically are a novel already.”

“This was another item about growing up: you encountered all the cliches of love and loss and heartbreak.”

“I plan to learn enough to read you like a book.”

“I was busy falling in love at first sight. So I had to stare. That's what you do when you're falling in love at first sight. You go into soft focus, and romantic music starts playing in the background.”

“Such nights are possible, and we survive them. It is a matter of sleeping next to the adored body you no longer have the right or inclination to love. Whether you are the one who casts off, or are the cast of yourself; whether your arms are the recoilers, or the ones that reach wantingly, then pull back, remembering they are no longer wanted. Two bodies that are used to each other's rhythms and sleep sounds, that know the turnings and breathings, know not to worry about that cough or that brief garbled grunt, that wildly flung arm or that stone-cold foot. Bodies that soon will not know each other's night selves: will touch each other through jackets and jeans and the cooled-down air of reestablished acquaintance, if such a thing is possible between a given pair of ex-lovers.”

“Don;t blush, for God's sake. You and your blushing - you're like some Victorian maiden.”

“I've been called promiscuous. Not a pretty word, is it? Makes you think of the gloop that comes out of your nose or what comes up your throat when you're gagging, if you're trying to swallow down something you didn't necessarily mean to swallow. Promiscuous: your face has to pucker when you say it.I prefer to think of myself as an adventurer. Charting the souls of so many of god's creatures, and of the floaty beings that populate the land of notions. It's a job. It's a calling. It takes strong thigh muscles, intelligence, cunning, a good pair of boots. It takes heart, in fact. The heart to stay on. To not be defeated.”