Quim," she said, "don't ever try to teach me about good and evil. I've been there, and you've seen nothing but a map.

Maybe she couldn't know who she was today. Maybe it was enough to know that she was no longer who she was before.

Death is not a tragedy to the one who dies; to have wasted the life before that death, that is the tragedy.

Who would I be, if other good souls did not make up for my shortcomings?

He loved her, as you can only love someone who is an echo of yourself at your time of deepest sorrow.

No matter how sexually attracted a man might be toward other men, or a woman toward other women, and no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the same as the coupling between a man and a woman.

Isn’t that what it means to be civilized? That you can wait to get what you want?