Fault always lies in the same place: with him weak enough to lay blame.

Oh Christ, he groaned to himself, if this is the stuff adults have to think about I never want to grow up

Mrs. Cole was a perfect democrat. She hated all kids equally.

A marriage was like a house under constant construction, each year seeing the completion of new rooms. A first-year marriage was a cottage; one that had gone on for twenty-seven years was a huge and rambling mansion. There were bound to be crannies and storage spaces, most of them dusty and abandoned, some containing a few unpleasant relics you would just as soon you hadn't found. But that was no biggie. You either threw those relics out or took them to Goodwill.

I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it is the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

She had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there was nothing physically wrong. She hurt all the time.

If a fear cannot be articulated, it can't be conquered.