Detroit's a great music town. If your interaction with it was mainly musical, I'm sure you have a good opinion of the place.

But, like anyone in love, Madeleine believed that her own relationship was different from every other relationship, immune from typical problems.

A seven-year-old girl can take only so many walks with her grandfather.

I think, especially when you're in college, each book that you're reading tends to tell you who you are.

Words, words, word. Once, I had the gift. I could make love out of words as a potter makes cups of clay. Love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. For sixpence a line, I could cause a riot in a nunnery. But now -- I have lost my gift. It's as if my quill is broken, as if the organ of my imagination has dried up, as if the proud -illegible word- of my genius has collapsed.

There have been hermaphrodites around forever, Cal. Forever. Plato said that the original human being was a hermaphrodite. Did you know that? The original person was two halves, one male, one female. Then these got separated. That's why everybody's always searching for their other half. Except for us. We've got both halves already.

that since Cecilia’s suicide, the Lisbon’s could hardly wait for the night to forget themselves in sleep