This is what intimacy does to us over time. That's what a long marriage can do: It causes us to inherit and trade each other's stories. (p.237)

Men go into marriage with virtually no expectations whatsoever. Ten years later, the men are delightfully surprised to find out that it's actually kind of nice, and the women have sort of had to take a nose dive from what they thought it was going to be.

When the karma of a relationship is done, only love remains. It's safe. Let go.

You love new boyfriend?" "I think so. Yes." "Then you must spoil him. And he must spoil you.

Nobody's life is interesting enough to warrant a third memoir.

This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down.

Marriage is a strange combination of dream and reality, and we spend our lives as couples trying to negotiate that divide.