“...Families are Forever, and wondered if the slogan was meant as a promise or a threat.”
“For most affairs, this eventually becomes the most fundamental of questions, the only one that matters: Do we love each other more than the lives we already have? It is the question that hovers in the background of every secret phone call, flavors every tryst with the head of possibilities of apocalypse and renewal; and it is the answer to that question, or the lack thereof, that so often dooms an affair to failure.”
“When it comes to love, everyone is a liar.”
“She considered, maybe for the first time, how lucky she was to be able to pick up the phone and call her mother whenever she needed bad advice.”
“Because this, after all, was the basic truth they all chose to live by: that love was no finite commodity. That it was not subject to the cruel reckoning of addition and subtraction, that to give to one did not necessarily mean to take from another; that the heart, in its infinite capacity-even the confused and cheating heart of the man in front of her, even the paltry thing now clenched and faltering inside her own chest-could open itself to all who would enter, like a house with windows and doors thrown wide, like the heart of God itself, vast and accommodating and holy, a mansion of rooms without number, full of multitudes without end.”
“For Golden it was hard not to think that there might be something wrong about a household in which the dog was wearing underwear and the children weren't.”
“But Golden's dark form in the doorway had imprinted something new and painful on the hard plates of her chest: that old devil, hope. The kind of hope that abandons you in your worst moments and is suddenly there again, weeks later, trailing you like the stubborn, slinking dog who will not take no for an answer. The kind of greedy hope that tricks you into believing that at least some of the things taken from you might be restored, that after everything, you might find your way back to something like happiness.”
“. . . Golden would find himself thinking that if he ever became delusional or foolhardy enough to outfit one of his houses with a complaint box, it would need to be about the size of a refrigerator.”
“He knows that for all the undeserved bounty of his life, she will always be there, at the edge of his vision, to remind him of all the things he can never have.”
“Even in the midst of all this commotion she knows none of it really belongs to her, and marvels at the strange fact of her dearest wish: to be part of it, to give in to it's distractions, to find herself the owner of a life lived rather than a life endured. And then she looks into the face of Mother #3, worn smooth and almost featureless, with moist eyes that can't seem to settle on anything for more than a heartbeat at a time, and she knows this is a very dangerous wish.”
“When she's next to him, when she rests her hand on his, his whole body aches with something like knowledge for all he has lost, the chances he will never have, to return such a touch, to fall of a horse or eat chinese food or shoot a crossbow (which has always been one of his most dear wishes), to receive a letter in the mail, to be kissed with longing or punched in the jaw.”
“I know, and I do trust you, but when you said it was a surprise I thought you meant 'Here, Luce. I got you a unicorn.' not 'Here, Luce, jump in the river.”
“I spent the last eleven years making your life hell. I’m ready to spend the rest of mine making it up to you. Spoiling you is just the start. Will you let me?”
“A man cannot live without water. He cannot live without it, but he can bear the thought of no water. A man can live without sex. He can live without it, but he cannot bear the thought of no sex.”
“I won't say I'm sorry." He lifted his hand, skimmed his fingers over her cheek. "I wouldn't mean it. But I will say I love you. I've never meant anything more."
He drew her into his arms. She pressed her face to his shoulder and held on. "I've been so messed up."
"So have I." He brushed his lips over her hair, felt his world balance again. "I've missed you, Eve."
"I won't let the job screw this up."
"It doesn't. We manage that on our own." He drew her back, touched his lips gently to hers. "But it keeps things lively, doesn't it?"
She sighed, stepped back. "It's gone."
"What is?"
"I've had this low-grade headache for a couple of days. It's gone. I guess you were my headache."
"Darling. That's so sweet.”
“beauty is your gift from God and it should be used and not squandered. Study this face as if it were a map of the ocean, your own trade route to the Indies. For it will bring you its own fortune. But always believe what the glass tells you. Because while others will try to flatter you, it has no reason to lie.”
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