I don't want anyone to look to me, not for protection, not for happiness, not for love, not for anything.

He was discovering that even hatred died a little at the end. But it still lasted longer than desire, longer even than love.

I am fifty years old and I have never known what it is to love. I can write those words, know them to be true, but feel only the regret that a tone-deaf man must feel because he can't appreicate music, a regret less keen because it is for something never known, not for something lost.

I learned early and at that kitchen table that there are ways of avoiding, without guilt, the commitments of love.

There are few couples as unhappy as those who are too proud to admit their unhappiness.