You want in all cases for the story to get through the writing.

I have never kept diaries. I just remember a lot and am more self-centered than most people.

They were all in their early thirties. An age at which it is sometimes hard to admit that what you are living is your life.

I began to understand that there were certain talkers - certain girls - whom people liked to listen to, not because of what they, the girls, had to say, but because of the delight they took in saying it. A delight in themselves, a shine on their faces, a conviction that whatever they were telling about was remarkable and that they themselves could not help but give pleasure. There might be other people - people like me - who didn't concede this, but that was their loss. And people like me would never be the audience these girls were after, anyway.

There is a limit to the amount of misery and disarray you will put up with, for love, just as there is a limit to the amount of mess you can stand around a house. You can't know the limit beforehand, but you will know when you've reached it. I believe this.

There would never be any room in her for anything else. No room for anything but the realization of what she had done.

Lovers. Not a soft word, as people thought, but cruel and tearing.