“Truth is worse than soap in the eyes.”

“I'm an old man now. Old on the inside. I'm a drunk, and I hate to tell you, but I'm not prepared to change. So you have to figure out if you want to forgive me and love me like I am, or run away ag...”

“The kitchen of the Big House was always one of my favorite places. Airy and sunny. No modern cabinets or anything like that. Just a room full of windows, set into wise, worn walls.”

“The kitchen door, painted red from the day Naomi moved in, and a geranium, also red, outside on the stoop, gave the whole area a feeling of whimsy.”

“You'll be just fine," he said. "Listen to your heart and mind together, that's the trick. Not one or the other, both.”

“You're a girl on fire. And it seems to me, you been dousing those flames for years. Let yourself burn a little.”

“Living a short life as a proud person is more worthwhile than living a whole century as a chameleon.”

“You know, you seem like a completely different person, now that you're with this new boyfriend. You used to look like your husband, but now you look like David. You even dress like him and talk lik...”

“I don't fit into any stereotypes. And I like myself that way.”

“Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out?”

“Honestly, if you don't fit in then you're probably doing the right thing.”

“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.”