“Within every elaborate lie, a kernel of truth.”

“The store was empty, without a single customer or employee. It appeared in the Internet age, pianos, like physical books, were fast becoming culturally extinct. Theyd probably stay that way unless ...”

“It was true. After our divorce, I'd ended up in a slight relationship with my last research assistant, Aurelia Feinstein, age 34-though let me state for the record it was not as hot as it sounded. ...”

“And that fear I'd felt, the disembodying confusion, seemed to be a drug I was now addicted to, because moving through the ordinary world- watching CNN, reading the Times, walking to Sant Ambroeus t...”

“When it was daylight, we'd been sitting on a stoop watching the street get light. She mentioned the light took eight minutes to leave the sun and reach us. You couldn't help but love that light tra...”

“I couldn't help but suspect something he'd seen or encountered had changed his view of what had happened between them. It had somehow set him free. And he'd let it fly, that gorgeous blackbird of a...”

“Nothing is more creative... nor destructive... than a brilliant mind with a purpose.”

“It would be unfair to expect other people to be as brilliant as oneself.”

“The heart is stubborn. It holds onto love despite what sense and emotion tells it. And it is often, in the battle of those three, the most brilliant of all.”

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of wi...”

“My dear,Find what you love and let it kill you.Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.Let it kill you and let it devour your remains....”

“If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?”

“I do not love men: I love what devours them.”

“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.”

“Part of his mind was screaming, but it was a distant one and easy to ignore.”