To marry was to say you believed in the future and in the past, too-that history and tradition and hope could stay knit together to hold you up.

Dogs are easy. If their tails are up and their eyes are soft, you're in.

Maybe happiness was an hourglass already running out, the grains tipping, sifting past each other. Maybe it was a state of mind.

I also liked to look around at the houses surrounding the park and wonder about the people who filled them, what kinds of marriages they had and how they loved or hurt each other on any given day, and if they were happy, and whether they thought happiness was a sustainable thing.

It gave me a sharp kind of sadness to think that no matter how much I loved him and tried to put him back together again, he might stay broken forever.

But love is love. It makes you do terribly stupid things.

The very rich only admire themselves