She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she loved to read.

Planning is for the world's great cities, for Paris, London, and Rome, for cities dedicated, at some level, to culture. Detroit, on the other hand, was an American city and therefore dedicated to money, and so design had given way to expediency.

What are you doing here, honey? You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets." (...) "Obviously, Doctor," she said, "you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl.

Every letter was a love letter.

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

The window was still open.” Mr Lisbon said. “I don’t think we’d ever remembered to shut it. It was all clear to me. I knew I had to close it or else she’d go on jumping out of it forever

I was unemployable when I got out of college.