“Not one of the boys like me. Ive put their noses out of joint.Well, they were never good-looking lads.”

“Mary, we met in a pub. As you werent banging a tambourine, I understand you werent selling the word of God.”

“I dont know what came over me.Charlie smiled. He drew her to him and kissed her. Me, he said.”

“Writing is like knitting. Stitch after stitch, word by word, and before you know it you have a book ... or a jumper!”

“Not one of the boys like me. I’ve put their noses out of joint.”“Well, they were never good-looking lads.”

“Mary, we met in a pub. As you weren’t banging a tambourine, I understand you weren’t selling the word of God.”

“Women were gravitating towards him from all directions like a planetary orbit.(Zoe on meeting Justus)”

“I dont know what came over me.Charlie smiled. He drew her to him and kissed her. Me, he said.”

“Only two classes of books have universal appeal. The very best and the very worst.”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”

“Sex can be used either for self-affirmation or for self-transcendence either to intensify the ego and consolidate the social persona by some kind of conspicuous embarkation and heroic conquest, or...”

“He didn't know all that much about how the machinery worked anyway. Such knowledge was for specialists. In war, as in love, he was a fearless, happy-go-lucky adventurer.”

“If she did experience sex--or something close to it--in high school, I'm sure it would have been less out of sexual desire or love than literary curiosity.”