“But this post-college world felt different from everything that had come before it; art was still central, but now everyone had to think about making a living too, and they did so with a kind of sc...”

“But, she knew, you didnt have to marry your soulmate, and you didnt even have to marry an Interesting. You didnt always need to be the dazzler, the firecracker, the one who cracked everyone up, or ...”

“There was no life Dennis burned to live except, it seemed, a life that wasn't depressed.”

“For while they'd stayed close during the absurd years of his sharp rise, having children had knocked it all into a different arrangement. The minute you had children you closed ranks. You didn't pl...”

“If someone said 'diametrically,' could 'opposed' be far behind?”

“It wasn't easy to understand how the love between two other people could diminish you. If those two people were still accessible to you, if they called you all the time, if they asked you to come i...”

“How little our careers express what lies in us, and yet how much time they take up. It's sad, really.”

“Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.”

“What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.”