This is the truth: You lose some things because you didn’t see the darkness rushing toward you. Some things disappear because it all snuck up on you so quickly and quietly, and you weren’t paying attention. Okay. But once in a while a loss is preventable. You can stop it. And if you don’t, you are to blame. The trick is knowing which is which.

That’s the way it is with certain people. They set their sights on you. They look at you straight on and they choose you, and they are dazzled by their own brilliant choice. It was the first time anyone had fallen in love with me like that. And I was powerless against it.

It’s amazing, really, the things two people think they know about each other.

Love was foolish and inevitable. We were just waiting to be shattered by it. The days were finite, full of awe.

And here’s something else I learned: you lose some people that way – fast and blinding. But some people inch away from you slowly, in barely discernible steps. In the end it almost doesn’t matter. They’re just as gone.

He was fed up with me by then; I knew that: the way my sadness was a suit of armor. How securely I kept him out.

I was suddenly overwhelmed with the knowledge that this was a moment to pay attention to: this day, this air, these two people. I felt the perfection of the moment and, inside of it, I felt its demise.

We’re performing the steps of our oldest dance. And even in this strange, sad, suspended state, I know that we are elegant at it.

Death smashes a crater into your life, and you’re left alone to sort through the rubble.

Can you love a work of art if the person who produced it was truly awful?