“But pain is an impatient customer. It wouldn't be long before it demanded attention.”

“Annas conclusions were these: That fire is beautifully cruel. That fusion occurs only at a specific heat. That blood, in fact, can boil. That the dissolution of an affair is an entropic reaction, a...”

“There are no accidents, Anna. Everything correlates. Everything connects. Every detail bears a consequence. One instant begets the next. And the next. And the next.”

“Even the ugliest swan is still more beautiful than the loveliest crown on the fence, Anna thought”

“It doesnt matter whether you believe in ghosts. The ghosts believe in you.”

“Is that not always the case? Given any two people in a relationship, one will always love more, the other less. Right?”

“Sex can be used either for self-affirmation or for self-transcendence either to intensify the ego and consolidate the social persona by some kind of conspicuous embarkation and heroic conquest, or...”

“He didn't know all that much about how the machinery worked anyway. Such knowledge was for specialists. In war, as in love, he was a fearless, happy-go-lucky adventurer.”

“If she did experience sex--or something close to it--in high school, I'm sure it would have been less out of sexual desire or love than literary curiosity.”