that a child is not an event, alleged or otherwise, a mistake or accident or crime. . . he is by definition more than this, sum rather than division, a living promissory note.

Men had suddenly become a scarce commodity, if not quite as sought after as rice.

Because it was the endless wanting that would break you, I thought. The constant craving for a love that might never be fulfilled that would bring you low, bit by bit, until one day you'd no longer be able to recognize any part of yourself.

By almost every account he's a fine young man. I'm simply trying to figure out why I should care that he's three centimeters taller than he was in May.

Break a person's heart and you become a kind of amnesiac killer. All the empathy you possess is momentarily held in abeyance while you address yourself wholeheartedly to your own emotional survival. You're just doing what you have no choice but to do. You're just living.Then it's over, and standing amid the wreckage of your life you remember.