Never say anything that doesn't improve on silence.

She was calm and quiet now with knowing what she had always known, what neither her parents nor Aunt Claire nor Frank nor anyone else had ever had to teach her: that if you wanted something to do something absolutely honest, something true, it always turned out to be a thing that had to be done alone.

Do you know what the definition of insane is? Yes. It’s the inability to relate to another human being. It’s the inability to love.

Know what we did, Lucy? You and me? We spent our whole lives yearning. Isn't that the God damndest thing?

Why did everything always change when all you wanted, all you had ever humbly asked of whatever God there might be, was that certain things be allowed to stay the same?

Dying for love might be pitiable, but it wasn't much different, finally, from any other kind of dying.

A man could rant and smash and grapple with the State Police, and still the sprinklers whirled at dusk on every lawn and the television droned in every living room.