“She'll be your dance partner, Jordan""Her? She's much too good. I'm scared!""Remember the feeling. Someday you'll want to write about it, and then it'll be good to know how the fear feels and to go...”

“I don't know how many years it's been since I last slept with my husband. I was faithful, stupid and so awfully lonely that I'll gobble you up if you're nice to me. Or kill you because I can't bear...”

“We cannot decide to love. We cannot compel anyone to love us. There's no secret recipe, only love itself. And we are at its mercy--there's nothing we can do.”

“Oh, merciless freedom, you continue to overwhelm me! You demand that I challenge myself and feel ashamed, and yet continue to feel so outrageously proud to live a life full of my desires.”

“Yes, the woman." Cunco took a deep breath. "Women like her don't come along that often, you know. Maybe only every two hundred years. She everything a man could dream of. Beautiful, clever, wise, c...”

“[Women] are superior beings to us men. When they love us, then they are being gracious, for only rarely do we give them reason to love us. I learned that from your mother, and she's right. Sad to s...”

“I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be okay with being different, and with being this alive, this intense. (xxvi)”

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”

“Birthdays could be such a bummer when you were older than the country you lived in.”