Together they had overcome the daily incomprehension, the instantaneous hatred, the reciprocal nastiness, and fabulous flashes of glory in the conjugal conspiracy. It was time when they both loved each other best, without hurry or excess, when both were most conscious of and grateful for their incredible victories over adversity. Life would still present them with other moral trials, of course, but that no longer mattered: they were on the other shore.

A man should have two wives: one to love and one to sew on his buttons.

She let him finish, scratching his head with the tips of her fingers, and without his having revealed that he was weeping from love, she recognized immediately the oldest sobs in the history of man.

When he went through the kitchen he kissed Rebeca on the forehead. "Get those bad thoughts out of your head," he told her. "You're going to be happy.

Always remember that the most important thing in a good marriage is not happiness, but stability.

She would not shed a tear, she would not waste the rest of her years simmering in the maggot broth of memory.

He pleaded so much that he lost his voice. His bones began to fill with words.