As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes.

I'm the only person you've ever met who has read Longfellow.

... Remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.

Literature is not only a mirror; it is a map, a geography of the mind.

I wanted to forget the past, but it refused to forget me; it waited for sleep, then cornered me.

Better not to invent her in her absence. Better to wait until she's actually here. Then he can make her up as she goes along.

Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It's like the tide going out, revealing whatever's been thrown away and sunk: broken bottles, old gloves, rusting pop cans, nibbled fishbodies, bones. This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future.