"Maybe that's why it had been at this moment that things became clear. As Amos stood in the hall, he saw finally what she deserved: a faith so total she never stopped to realize that's what it was; the faith that someone was there, that if she were tired or sad or just emptied out, she had people against whom she could lean. That's what he hadn't had, what he'd spent so long trying to find. But, he told Claire, here was the thing, the essence he'd grasped: what was the point of transcending one's past if the cost were giving those same hurts to his child? And wasn't that what he'd be doing? Because how could she live? How could she breathe? What healing was possible when her own parents refused to acknowledge the truth? And what was life, after all, if not the question of whether we'd spot the real moments of meaning? Could we, through force of habit and will, know when to shed our selfish, small skins? And, if we did, would we act? Claire had been wrong: it wasn't enough just to be gentle and nice, to bring her tea or go for long walks. One needs to do something -- he had to do something -- to behave like someone who believed what she said. Maybe his whole life had been about this, Amos thought. It might be the one choice that would count in the end. He knew how she would feel, he told Claire as he paced. But he had to, he just had to, and he hoped she would see."

"Yes, he loved Claire. But how to untangle love from the promise of a life in which certain things would be so much easier? Was theirs a transaction? Was anything not? It went without saying that when they had met certain thoughts crossed his mind: the house they would own, their children's inevitable schools, the way he could work as he wanted without paying the cost. Plus, just imagine how much more present and loving and open he'd be. All because his days weren't filled with deadening hours, because his mind was no longer so clenched with dread."

"This was bullshit, he knew. A convenient place to hide her disdain, a technicality on which the sentence could be hung. Just imagine if he'd tried to tell her when things were still so uncertain and new. How would he even have put it? Hey, girl of my dreams, it's me, the guy with the fucked-up dead parents; the one with no family, with these stories of want and neglect. Anyway, I thought you should know that on top of all that, I'm a thief, too. Not a serious one -- no, nothing that brave, just a flailing child trapped by compulsion and fear."

"What had been most unbearable about watching his own parents careen toward the wreck of their lives was the fact that they did so alone. Maybe, he thought, if they'd each managed to choose someone better, the rest could've been survived with some grace. It was from this conviction that Amos fashioned hope. The person you marry, he often say, is the one you want nearby during the worst moments of your life. The togetherness was all, the promise to work through it together."

"Because the love of friends is a gravity -- debris is drawn toward it without knowing why. Romantic love seals itself off, it pairs and withdraws. But friendship is a ladder: it's something you climb; it's two hands knit together to let you see over the fence. Sometimes one person feels it, sometimes the other. But then there are times like this, when it's both together, when each of you knows that you've gone somewhere you can't get on your own."