At least one really good day

Every relationship has at least one really good day.  What I mean is, no matter how sour things go, there's always that day.  That day is always in your possession.  That's the day you remember.

p. 17, The Feast of Love, Charles Baxter, Sept. 2010

Scent of soul

I wanted to put a hand on her face or on her arm because I thought that if I did that, I would be so happy.  I just wanted to feel her skin but of course I wanted to feel the muscle beneath her skin and I wanted to get at the soul underneath that muscle because I could smell it.  I had never gotten a whiff of Bradley's soul and at that moment...I had a flash that I never would...But at that table I could smell her soul and I wanted it.

p. 39, The Feast of Love, Charles Baxter, Sept. 2010

Default-mode negatives: husband material

Was this the classic instance of a smart woman selling herself short?  As the weeks went on and I grew to know him better, I thought of all these default-mode negatives:  he seemed not ignoble, not ill-spoken, not a bully, not inconsiderate, not obnoxious, not a boor, not violent, not distressing, not disdainful, not a bad dresser, not unmindful, not dirty or smelly, and not particularly ironic.  He was not unhandsome.  He was not unattractive.  In other words, he was husband material.  Simple as that.

p. 138, The Feast of Love, Charles Baxter, Sept. 2010

Parents

The colors on the water were turning from magenta to a sort of hot pink, and I was having this insight that my parents had let me loose in the world without explaining anything of importance to me.

p. 216, The Feast of Love, Charles Baxter, Sept. 2010