i realize i will never hear from dena again, and i will never call her. it gives me a chill. it is a strange thing to end a friendship, even if you know it's what you want. it's like a death; all of a sudden your experience of a person become finite.

You don't need a reason to forgive... If you want to go on with someone, that is what you do.

It scares me. But then I get this big feeling, simple but exalted: He's like me, just with different details.

You did the best you could," and she seemed to believe I had. I said, "I've just been going through the motions," using the expression my father had after he'd watched my first tennis lesson. "Sweetie," she said, "that's what a lot of life is.

You have to shrink yourself to fit into this little life with him.

The writing is clean. I really wouldn't have changed a word. Most of it is true, too, except that the hero quits drinking and the girl grows up. On the last page, the couple gets married, which is a nice way for a love story to end.

Time. There seems to be vast quantities of the stuff spooling around me in all directions, everywhere i look. Days and hours. Weeks and minutes. Years. The hard part, ive discovered, is filling it.