“Theyd scared me and had me thinking about what it meant to be really strong, on my own termsnot just fit and brown from the sun, not just flexible and accommodating.”

“Not everyone believed in marriage then. To marry was to say you believed in the future and in the past, too - that history and tradition and hope could stay knit together to hold you up.”

“We knew what we had and what it meant, and though so much had happened since for both of us, there was nothing like those years in Paris, after the war. Life was painfully pure and simple and good,...”

“I preferred to look at the sea, which said nothing and never made you feel alone.”

“He was a humorist, and everyone knew the funny writers were the most serious sort under their skins.”

“They love me like a pack of wolves.Ernest”

“In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find and continue to find grounds for marriage.”

“You don't know when you're twenty-three.You don't know what it really means to crawl into someone else's life and stay there. You can't see all the ways you're going to get tangled, how you're goin...”

“Even the jerks earn some of our affection. We can be glad they're gone and yet still mourn the good parts.”