“And don't tell me the end justifies the means because it doesn't. We never reach the end. All we ever get is means. That's what we live with.”

“Mercer, Polly says, we are now going to hug. As a group. The experience will be very un-English. It will be good for you. Do not speak, at all, especially not in an attempt to diffuse the emotional...”

“Crotch biting menace:I have my mouth in close proximity to your genitals.Oh thou man who talks to my mistress over coffee.Do not irk or trifle with me! I possess but one tooth, oh, yes, for the res...”

“Destiny' is the state of perfect mechanical causation in which everything is the consequence of everything else. If choice is an illusion, what's life? Consciousness without volition. We'd all be p...”

“I shall now explain my plan. You may then speak, but only to amend the detail. The broad outline is not subject to negotiation. Are you ready? Good I propose to have sex with you. I believe it wil...”

“Joe Spork opens the door. The man departs. Joe turns to Polly to say something about how theyre obviously not going to Portsmouth, and finds an oyster knife balanced on his cheek, just under his ey...”

“There used to be days that I thought I was okay, or at least that I was going to be. We'd be hanging out somewhere and everything would just fit right and I would think 'it will be okay if it can j...”

“I want to try with someone who loves me enough to try with me. I want to grow old looking at the same face every morning. I want to grow old looking at the same face every night at the dinner table...”

“Hes dozed off again, but I kiss him awake, which seems to startle him. Then he smiles as if hed be happy to lie there gazing at me forever.”

“This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.”

“From childhood's hour I have not been. As others were, I have not seen. As others saw, I could not awaken. My heart to joy at the same tone. And all I loved, I loved alone.”

“You can obsess and obsess over how things endedwhat you did wrong or could have done differentlybut there's not much of a point. It's not like it'll change anything. So really, why worry?”

“The heart was made to be broken.”

“He does something to me, that boy. Every time. Its his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.”

“Was it hard?" I ask.Letting go?"Not as hard as holding on to something that wasn't real.”