And sometimes it happened, for a time. That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain. You would look at the man one day and you would think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done; and you would know too why your friends had been evasive about it, at the time.
There is a good deal of comfort, now, in remembering this.
--Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
No one knows why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow.
--Erik Larson, The Devil In The White City: Murder, Magic And Madness At The Fair That Changed America
The sister played so beautifully. Her face was tilted to one side and she followed the notes with soulful and probing eyes. Gregor advanced a little, keeping his eyes low so that they might possibly meet hers. Was he a beast if music could move him so?
--Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
From this point on, she whispered, we will either find or lose our souls.
--Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. I am Jack's Broken Heart.
--Chuck Palahnuik, Fight Club
You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You cannot earn that or deserve it.
--Charles Portis, True Grit