“She now knew that it was possible to love two people at once—because you could love them in different ways.”

“I love you, Eveline," he whispered, though he knew she could not hear him. "Somehow, I'll make you hear me and you'll know that I love you as fiercely as it's possible for a man to love a woman.”

“When two people were in love you had to leave them to it. Especially when you weren't in love and wished that you were. That could embarrass. That could hurt.”

“Does she stay because she loves him as meat loves salt? Or does she stay because he has now promised her the kingdom? It is hard for her to tell the difference.”

“In her businesslike way she thought that her life had begun when she was a very young woman and she really did look lovely: you knew it wouldn't last and you packed all you could into it — but men were different. A man like B — like Alfie, too — never got beyond the time when they were boys and, damn them, it kept them young.”

“If you can't love two people at once, there's something wrong with you.”

“Two people making love, she once said, are like one drowned person resuscitating the other.”

“I read once that you need two things to be happy: any two of health, money, and love. You can cover the absense of one with the other two… But now I realized this was unmitigated bullshit, because health and money did not compare with love at all.”

“I knew then that Jocelyn would never come back to me, because of you. You are the only thing in the world she ever loved more than she loved me. And because of that she hates me. And because of that, I hate the sight of you”

“I knew I would hate my best memory because it would prove that people could fake love or that love could end or worst of all, love was not powerful enough to change a life.”