And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being loved is intolerable to many.

Don't you loathe it when doctors use the word 'we' when it applies only and solely to yourself?

Listen,” F. Jasmine said. “What I’ve been trying to say is this. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that I am I, and you are you? I am F. Jasmine Addams. And you are Berenice Sadie Brown. And we can look at each other, and touch each other, and stay together year in and year out in the same room. Yet always I am I, and you are you. And I can’t ever be anything else but me, and you can ever be anything else but you. Have you ever thought of that? And does it seem to you strange?

Once you have lived with another, it is a great torture to have to live alone.

There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.

Owing to the fact he was a mute they were able to give him all the qualities they wanted him to have.

The music left only this bad hurt in her, and a blankness. She could not remember any of the symphony, not even the last few notes. She tried to remember, but no sound at all came to her. Now that it was over there was only her heart like a rabbit and this terrible hurt.