. . . he felt himself entering a moment so real he could only run toward it, shouting.

I have no useful theories about love and marriage.

Dear Leonard. To look life in the face. Always to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it. To love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard. Always the years between us. Always the years. Always the love. Always the hours.

..this indiscriminate love feels entirely serious to her, as if everything in the world is part of a vast, inscrutable intention and everything in the world has its own secret name, a name that cannot be conveyed in language but is simply the sight and feel of the thing itself.

There is a beauty in the world, though it's harsher than we expect it to be.

She will remain sane and she will live as she was meant to live, richly and deeply, among others of her kind, in full possession and command of her gifts.

Here's a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they'd intended to write.