She was a ghost in a strange house that overnight had become immense and solitary and through which she wandered without purpose, asking herself in anguish which one of them was deader: the man who had died or the woman he had left behind.

I became aware that the invincible power that has moved the world is unrequited, not happy, love.

I don't know who said that novelists read the novels of others only to figure out how they are written. I believe it's true. We aren't satisfied with the secrets exposed on the surface of the page: we turn the book around to find the seams.

Shame has poor memory.

Then he made one last effort to search in his heart for the place where his affection had rotted away, and he could not find it.

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.

She was lost in her longing to understand.