“I'd always disparaged the games people played in pursuit of love--or the next hook up. The whole thing was a competition to see who could get how far, and I could never figure out if there was more luck or skill involved, or some unknowable combination of the two. People rarely said what they thought, or revealed how they felt. No one was honest.”

“People rarely said what they thought, or revealed how they felt. No one was honest.”

“Son, if there's on thing I know," and Colin thought about how old people always like to tell you the one thing they know, "it's that there's some people in this world who you can just love and love and love no matter what.”

“It always struck me in years after how bizarre it was, how two people could look at one another with such tenderness and complete love, and how quickly that could dissolve into nothing but bitterness.”

“..however she was a woman and I'd have more luck conjuring up the thoughts of a chinaman than I would figuring out what she was conspiring”

“I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to see how they felt for one another, how the heart of each to each was softened by the hard trials of their lives. I think the best side of such people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves and God.”