“It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a person looked when he smiled. She had not thought of it before.”

“She had never thought about her name much before, but when he said it, it was as if she were hearing it for the first time - the hard T, the caress of the double S, the way it seemed to end on a breath.”

“He had come on her that morning in a moment of disarray; her face had been pale and altered, and the diminution of her beauty had lent her a poignant charm. That is how she looks when she is alone! had been his first thought; and the second was to note in her the change which his coming produced.”

“She looked up at him with a smile. The smile broke what was left of his resistance--shattered it. He had let the walls down when he'd thought she was gone, and there was no time to build them back up.”

“It was not knowing that was the seed of madness, loneliness, fear. But there were ways to solve all this. Clarity had made her knowable to the world, and had made her better, had brought her close, she hoped, to perfection. Now the world would follow. Full transparency would bring full access, and there would be no more not-knowing. Mae smiled, thinking about how simple it all was, how pure. Bailey shared her smile.”

“It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.”

“When Fortune smiles, I smile to think
How quickly she will frown.”

“When she looked at him now, she couldn't help thinking that the man he had become bore so little resemblance to the boy he had been. His smile was the only piece of baggage he had carried with him from boyhood into manhood.”

“Frank Sinatra stopped his car. The light was red. Pedestrians passed quickly across his windshield but, as usual, one did not. It was a girl in her twenties. She remained at the curb staring at him. Through the corner of his left eye he could see her, and he knew, because it happens almost every day, that she was thinking, It looks like him, but is it? Just before the light turned green, Sinatra turned toward her, looked directly into her eyes waiting for the reaction he knew would come. It came and he smiled. She smiled and he was gone.”

“All I could do is lie there and think about how much her voice changed when she asked me if she was pretty, and how much she changed when I answered.”