For me, a novel relying too heavily on a single idea might be a dry, deadly thing unless it possesses an animating force.

You stayed around your children as long as you could, inhaling the ambient gold shavings of their childhood, and at the last minute you tried to see them off into life and hoped that the little piece of time you’d given them was enough to prevent them from one day feeling lonely and afraid and hopeless. You wouldn’t know the outcome for a long time.

Just the act of sleeping beside someone you liked to be with. Maybe that was love.

Part of the beauty of love was that you didn’t need to explain it to anyone else. You could refuse to explain. With love, apparently you didn’t necessarily feel the need to explain anything at all.

We are all here, on this earth for only one go around. And everyone thinks their purpose is to just find their passion. But perhaps our purpose is to find what other people need.

Everybody has a theme. You talk to somebody awhile, and you realize they have one particular thing that rules them. The best you can do is a variation on the theme, but that's about it.

People like to warn you that by the time you reach the middle of your life, passion will begin to feel like a meal eaten long ago, which you remember with great tenderness.