Or maybe, he thought, returning to the boxes, it was part of being Catholic--you were made to feel guilty about everything

Oh that's lovely," said Bunny. "Olive, you've got a date." "Why would you say something so foolish?" Olive asked, really annoyed. "We're two lonely people having supper." "Exactly," said Bunny. "That's a date.

You have family", Bob said. "You have a wife who hates you. Kids who are furious with you. A brother and sister who make you insane. And a nephew who used to be kind of a drip but apparently is not so much of a drip now. That's called family".

If you get divorced in New York, you go into therapy and will talk to anybody you meet on the sidewalk about it.

The facts didn't matter. Their stories mattered, and each of their stories belonged to each of them alone.

It’s just that I’m the kind of person,' Rebecca continued, 'that thinks if you took a map of the whole world and put a pin in it for every person, there wouldn’t be a pin for me.

He would not let her go. Even though, staring into her open eyes in the swirling salt-filled water, with sun flashing though each wave, he thought he would like this moment to be forever: the dark-haired woman on shore calling for their safety, the girl who had once jumped rope like a queen, now holding him with a fierceness that matched the power of the ocean—oh, insane, ludicrous, unknowable world! Look how she wanted to live, look how she wanted to hold on.