So much of marriage was implicit and nonverbal. Had I gotten so complacent I'd forgotten to communicate?

Joseph Obomsawin, the elder I lived with there, says that those who turn to animals do so because humans have let them down.

That's the strange thing about being a mother: until you have a baby, you don't even realize how much you were missing one

Why is it that only in the very beginnings of a relationship are you aware of the heat coming from inside a person, of the number of inches you would have to move for your shoulders to brush as if it were an accident?

We'd sit with a big bowl of popcorn, wrapped together in a queen-size blanket, and would escape to a place where magic was ours for the taking, where men rescued the people they loved instead of abandoning them. A place where, no matter how bad things looked at that moment, there would always be a happy ending.

Missed opportunities were never superficial wounds; they cut straight to the bone.

I haven't run out of ideas yet. Usually while I'm working on a book, I'm doing research for the next one!