Everyone is fragile. Everything beautiful is fragile

I sometimes think the stronger you feel about someone, the harder it is to picture their face when you are away from them.

Honesty was a tough customer... Once you started allowing yourself some honesty, it couldn't easily be contained or limited to one part of your life. It was like poison ivy or a bossy houseguest. Once it was there, you couldn't tell it what to do. You had to really fight to keep it from taking over.

All the things she planned to feel, the way she planned to look and seem, the appropriate things she planned to say. None of them came to pass.

Wear them, they will make you brave.

The weather turned. Her skin seemed to grow a million extra pores, and all of them opened to take in the warmth and tenderness of the air. The sun on her face made her want to cry. Into all those millions of open pores came the sunshine, and other feelings as well. In and out. She was porous.

Once Paul told her that the beach was like him because it changed every day but it never made any progress. Later she remembered thinking that a normal person might have begun by saying that he was like the beach.