And I think I thought that if I said something everyone would notice that I didn't belong.

He wanted to be hip . . . and that was the problem, that was what made him so square.

I was stuck with myself wasn't I, but here he was being given a chance to walk away and here he was squandering it.

This part is hard to talk about, I dislike doing it, for that reason I may, forgive me, attempt to be funny.

Thinking, Better not to speak just yet, better first to figure out what it is you want me to say.

Nothing is more desirable than that which is being withheld.

Good intentions, sure, but when have they ever been enough.

It might be worth mentioning that at that moment I hated Laura, was glad her marriage had fallen apart, that her ceaseless trust in the world had at last been proven foolish. Finding friends in every city she moved to, marrying a man on the strength of what, who knows, everywhere manufacturing happiness, happiness, happiness. But her luck had run out. Her story was still the better story, but finally, thank god, she was miserable in it.

Also . . . I didn't realize how many times he'd told the story. I should have known, how polished it was. The practiced hesitations. I thought he was opening a door. And that on the other side of the door was—intimacy, I guess. Only it was just a room. A crowded one.

But he ran a bookstore, managed it, was well read, which we cared about then, whether someone had read the same books we had, and which I try to, have to, care less about now.