“There's nothing more embarrassing than to have earned the disfavor of a perceptive animal.”

“The problem, if anything, was precisely the opposite. I had too much to write: too many fine and miserable buildings to construct and streets to name and clock towers to set chiming, too many chara...”

“Other than along certain emotional tangents there was little in the book that felt as if it had actually been lived. It was a fiction produced by someone who knew only fictions, The Tempest as writ...”

“Although it wasn't raining anymore, the air was still heavy with water, and rain gutters were ringing all over Point Breeze.”

“[His coat] emitted an odor of bus station so desolate that just standing next to him you could feel your luck changing for the worse.”

“He looked so profoundly disappointed in me that I wondered for a moment if he was someone I knew.”

“She wasnt exactly sure when it happened. Or even when it started. All she knew for sure was that right here and now, she was falling hard and she could only pray that he was feeling the same way.”

“First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love.”

“Sometimes you break your heart in the right way, if you know what I mean.”