To ward off a feeling of failure, she joked that she could wallpaper her bathroom with rejection slips, which she chose not to see as messages to stop, but rather as tickets to the game.

I think about the hurt that stories cannot ease, not with a thousand tellings.

Among other things, Kathryn knew, grief was physically exhausting.

That I have no right to be jealous is irrelevant. It is a human passion: the sick, white underbelly of love.

And so a person can never promise to love someone forever because you never know what might come up, what terrible thing the person you love might do.

Love and marriage are wonderful arenas in which to place a character. We are most likely to risk our morals and beliefs while in love. Betrayal gives tremendous insights into a character as well.

Love is never as ferocious as when you think it's going to leave you.