“A first kiss in the book stacks. Now that was romantic.”

“A first kiss in the book stacks. Now that was romantic.”

“People abandoned one another constantly without performing the courtesy of of actually disappearing. They left, but didn't, lurking about, a constant reminder of what could or should have been.”

“True patriotism, Jack believed, would have been for his fellow Americans to look inward after 9/11 and accept a little blame, admit the attacks had happened, in part, because of who they were in the world, not in spite of it.”

“[Jack:] 'I was twenty-four when I met Walker. Do you know I've never lived alone? I'm forty-four years old and I've never lived alone. The first few weeks Walker was gone, I didn't know what to do with myself. I'd stay in the store until late, pick up some takeout, and just watch television until I fell asleep.'[... Melody:] 'Sounds kind of great right”

“Right now, it felt like there was nowhere for his thoughts to alight that wasn't rife with land mines of regret or anger or guilt.”

“This is nice,' Melody said, picking up a red leather box with a vintage watch inside.'Yes, it is nice. It's the watch I gave Walker as a wedding gift.''He gave it back?''Actually, he sold it back to the person I bought it from who alerted me and I reacquired it.''I'm sorry. That sounds upsetting.''It was. Very. Especially since he sold the watch to buy combs for my long hair and without knowing what he had done I sold my hair to buy a leather case for this watch.”

“This was the part she hated, the part of a relationship that always nudged her to bail, the part where someone else’s misery or expectations or neediness crept into her carefully prescribed world. It was such a burden, other people’s lives. She did love Leo. She’d loved him in a host of different ways at different times in their lives, and she did want whatever their current thing was to continue. Probably. But she always came back to this: She was so much better at being alone; being alone came more naturally to her. She led a life of deliberate solitude, and if occasional loneliness crept in, she knew how to work her way out of that particular divot.”