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.

When you have a healthy appetite there is no such thing as bad bread.

The spirit of her invincible heart guided her through the shadows.

Morality, too, is a question of time.

Love is not a condition of the spirit but a sign of the zodiac.

But he could not renounce his infinite capacity for illusion at the very moment he needed it most... he saw fireflies where there were none.

a process of aging had taken place in him that was so rapid and critical that soon he was being treated as one of those useless great-grandfathers who wander about the bedroom like shades, dragging their feet, remembering better times aloud, and whom no one bother about or remembers really until the morning they find them dead in their bed.