“I was getting an A for work. But not for talent. The story of my life.”

“I bet you could sometimes find all the mysteries of the universe in someone's hand.”

“How could I have ever been ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?”

“Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder.”

“Summertime. It was a song. It was a season. I wondered if that season would ever live inside of me.”

“I think you love him more than you can bear.”

“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.”

“There is a light within our soul that burns brighter than the sun. And we ignore it.”

“It's not much. You begin by thinking there is something extraordinary about it. But you'll find out, when you've been out in the world a while longer, unhappiness is the commonest thing there is.”

“A man can gasp out his life beside you-and you feel none of it. Pity, Sympathy, sure-but you don't feel the pain. Your belly is whole and that's what counts. A half-yard away someone's world is snu...”