The Fireman: A Novel

But we need kindness like we need to eat. It satisfies something in us we can’t do without.”

“You don’t blame a match for starting a fire,” the Sarah flame said. “You blame the person who strikes it. You were just a match.”

Do you know you are drop-dead sexy until the minute you start to talk? Then you turn into a colossal ass.”

A star fell. She wished for him not to move, to stay right where he was, with her head on his shoulder. If time were ever to snag in place, she wished for it to snag there, with John pressed against her and spring breathing in their faces.

It is impossible to go through life without trust:
that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
—G. Greene

“Falling in love: what a horrible thing. For what it’s worth, I tried to have as little to do with you as possible. To see you as little as possible. Not just because I didn’t want to fall in love. I didn’t want you to fall in love, either.

He leaned toward her and kissed her then—a warm, affectionate kiss that tasted of rum and coffee and butter and pecans and cigarettes and Englishman. He drew back, looked at her uncertainly.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I hope not.”

There was some writer who said language is no way to communicate

Harper thought automatically of how the romance between a moth and a candle usually ended: with the moth spinning to its death, wings smoking.

You don’t talk to an ocean and it don’t talk back. You just . . . let it carry you.”