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I told her she had run an enormous risk rescuing me, and she smiled. It was then I understood that the days of Colonel Garcia and all those like him are numbered, because they have not been able to destroy the spirit of these women. (p487)

Today you try what suits you and when it don't-

move on, move on, move on.

Being told he was right was always a tonic to Ken

there is an automatic pleasure in watching a thing done well.

Like frustrated suburban wives we fed on each other's discontent; we became divided into mean little cliques and subdivided into jealously shifting pairs of buddies, and we pieced out our idleness with gossip.

She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying. (p22)

That was a good time in my life, in spite of having the sensation of floating on a cloud, surrounded by both lies and things left unspoken. Occasionally I thought I glimpsed the truth, but soon found myself once again lost in a forest of ambiguities. (p125)

And she was halfway up the stairs before he decided that his best reply was to make no reply at all.

if self-deception was an illness she was well into its advanced stages.

We had a few beers and laughed more than we meant to and punched each other's arms; in the end, out on the sidewalk again, I think we shook hands about three times in saying goodbye. Just before turning away he said "Listen, though: don't look back too much, okay? You can drive yourself crazy that way."

"I think you'll find ordinary people are nicer than you give them credit for being"

"Well, marriage is funny, Mike", Harold said once with the wind whipping the vapor of his voice over his shoulder. "You can go along for years without ever knowing who you're married to. It's a riddle."

"You're right," Michael said. "It is."

"Then maybe once in a while you take a look at this girl, this woman, and you think: What's the deal? How come? Why her? Why me?"

"Yeah, I know what you mean, Harold."