Novels attempt to render human experience; that's really all they are. They are meant to convey empathy for the character.

I marvel at how good I was before I met him, how I lived molded to the smallest space possible, my days the size of little beads that passed without passion through my fingers. So few people know what they're capable of. At forty-two I'd never done anything that took my own breath away, and I suppose now that was part of the problem - my chronic inability to astonish myself.

From now on when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I planned to say, Amnesiac.

And when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love.

I felt someone should personally thank every rock out there for the human misery it had absorbed. We should kiss them one by one & say, we are sorry, but something strong & lasting had to do this for May, & you are the chosen ones. God bless your rock hearts.

You can't stop your heart from loving, really -- it's like standing out there in the ocean yelling at the waves to stop.

the redness had seeped from the day and night was arranging herself around us. Cooling things down, staining and dyeing the evening purple and blue black.