And so he did the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life: he picked up his hat and walked away.

And it's like some tiny nothing that sets off a natural disaster halfway across the world, only this was the opposite of disaster, how by accident she saved me with that thoughtless act of grace, and she never knew, and how that, too, is the part of the history of love.

. . . she gave him one of those broad smiles she reserved for strangers, as if she were aware of being able to pass, in their eyes, for an ordinary woman.

... as a rule of thumb, whenever there appears a plural, correct for a singular. Should I ever let slip a royal WE, put me out of my misery with a swift blow to the head.

In one's youth, one has tremendous access to one's feelings. And as one gets older, some of those feelings kind of drift away. But so much more happens to you. There's more at stake in life.

The fact that you got a little happier today doesn't change the fact that you also became a little sadder. Every day you become a little more of both, which means that right now, at this exact moment, you're the happiest and saddest you've ever been in your whole life.

I take almost no notes when I write. I have one notebook - this old green leather notebook that my dad gave me a decade ago.