We had lain together, skin on skin, been as close as two people could, and he was a stranger. He was that someone who you are afraid of as a child, stranger. They never told you that stranger might be someone you knew.

You could try and understand people, you could read books and understand words and concepts and ideas, but you could never understand enough or have enough knowledge to keep away the surprises that both fate and human beings had in store.

Maybe we all just want to feel special, even for a little while, to be fooled for a bit into feeling something besides the truth of our own ordinariness.

If time heals all wounds, and a book can hold a person's entire life, then you can speed up the process with a pulp time warp.

Rejection, though--it could make the loss of someone you weren't even that crazy about feel gut wrenching and world ending.

We look down our noses at people who've made mistakes in relationships. She's so stupid! How could she do that! Our superiority makes us feel better. But I’d bet everything I have on the fact that people to claim to have a perfect record in love are either lying or have very limited dating experience. People who say, I’d never do that! Someday, unless you are very, very lucky, you’ll have a story to tell. Or not to tell.

You take care of the people you love, but it’s true, too, that you take care of the things you own.