"Amina would not know herself until years later, when she understood what it was to long for someone, to ache for their smell and taste on you, to imagine the weight of their hips pinning yours so precisely that you crane up to meet your own invisible desire."

"There were all her feelings for him, sharp and defined, one as true as the other. And there was the other, this hatred, just as real as the rest. She could have done her feelings up in little packets and given them to Stanley. She longed to hand him that last one, for a surprise. She could see his eyes as he opened that..."

"Young ladies ... Who fall in love, never consider whether there is sufficient 'to make the pot boil' - probably because young ladies in love lose their appetites, and, not feeling inclined to eat at that time, they imagine that love will always supply the want of food."

"I do believe that people can only be in love with one landscape in their lifetime. One can appreciate and enjoy many geographies, but there is only one that one feels in one’s bones."

"You try getting any sympathy when you tell your best friends how much the self-avowed sadist broke your heart, how much pain she put you through. — Ivan E. Coyote to --------, 2004 (age 35)."