“You can t coast uphill.”

“If you don’t have the time to do something right, where are you going to find the time to fix it?”

“The imponderable bloom, declared by a discredited philosophy to be the actual essence of intercourse, was rightly ignored by the Machine”

“I’m not going to wear a red dress,” she said.”It would look stunning, My Lady,” she called.She spoke to the bubbles gathered on the surface of the water. “If there’s anyone I wish to stun at dinner, I’ll hit him in the face.”

“Even at the time—twenty years old—I said to myself: better to go hungry, to go to prison, to be a tramp, than to sit at an office desk ten hours a day. There is no particular daring in this vow, but I have not broken it and shall not do so. The wisdom of my grandfathers sat in my head: we are born for the pleasure of work, fighting, love, we are born for that and nothing else. (Guy de Maupassant)”

“Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.”

“One day can change your life. One day can ruin your life. All life is is three or four big days that change everything.”

“Papa was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones. Papa was an accordion! But his bellows were all empty. Nothing went in and nothing came out.”

“Having declared a passion for his wildness, she had sought from the beginning to tame him.”

“So, let me get this right.” He braked at a traffic light and yanked at the edges of his bow tie, reefing the knot undone, leaving the tails flapping open. “You’re pissed at me because my friends don’t think you’re just some kind of fuck buddy?”

“Don’t tell me about your god with your words. Show me about your god with your actions.”

“Conflict is inevitable but combat is optional.”

“But if we are all God’s children, why does God spend so much time in history ordering one branch of his universal family to wipe out another branch? Why did his love for his Jewish children have to be expressed by the extermination of his Palestinian children? Why did he later abandon his Jewish children in favour of his Christian children and encourage his new favourites to torment their older siblings? Why did he order his Muslim children who worship him as One to persecute his pagan children who worship him as Many? Why is there so much violence in religious history, all done by groups who claim God is on their side?Unless you are prepared to believe that God actually plays favourites like some kind of demented tyrant, then there are only two ways out of this dilemma. The obvious one is to decide that there is no God. What is called God is a human invention used, among other things, to justify humankind’s love of violence and hatred of strangers. Getting rid of God won’t solve the problem of human violence but it will remove one of its pretexts.”

“The only thing we have in equal measure is TIME”

“Looking at him, she saw her future and felt all the ragged tears in her heart heal themselves. “I fit,” she whispered in marvel, stepping into him. “I fit with you.”He nodded and wrapped his arms around her. “Perfectly”