“I want him to be happy. And I want you to be happy, too. Even if you can only find that happiness without me.”

“I step back further, until I feel cold tiles against my back. It is then I get the glimmer that I associate with memory. As my mind tries to settle on it, it flutters away, like ashes caught in a b...”

“I want to sleep. To find a safe place somewhere, and close my eyes, and rest, like an animal. That is what I am. An animal. Living from moment to moment, day to day, trying to make sense of the wor...”

“There were never going to be any happy ending for me. I know that now. But that is all right. That is all right.”

“I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd fought for you. I was weak and stupid.”

“With him everything is a test, affection is measured, that given weighed against that which has been received, and the balance, more often than not, disappointing him.”

“A human being in this aged nation of ours is a very wonderful whole, the slow creation of long interchanging influences; and charm is a result of two such wholes, the one loving and the one loved.”

“The more one judges, the less one loves.”

“[N]one of us drinks the chalice of our existence to the last drop. None of us is fully obedient. Each of us falls short of the human nature entrusted to us.”

“For every inch of skin, there is memory. Devils are so made. Saints, too, if you believe in them. His humanity has been broken as an old walking stick that once held up a crippled man named Thomas....”

“It frightens me that I can't do anything sensible about it.""Are you scared that you'll wind up with a boring job where you have to see the same people every day and drink instant coffee?""I'm more...”

“She'd be dead before the memories and pain were finally gone; she knew it, accepted it, and dealt with it.”