“Old love is different. In our 70s and 80s, we had been through enough of life’s ups and downs to know who we were, and we had learned to compromise. The finish line was drawing closer.”

“Ours was a common and unsung friendship, that between women living in New York, single and alone, and the doormen who take care of them, acting as gatekeepers, bodyguards, confidants and father figures.”

“I tossed out one last question: ‘Have you ever been in love?’ No one, he said, had ever asked him that in an interview. ‘Yes,’ he finally answered. ‘But I didn’t realize it until it was too late.’ Then he asked me to turn off my recorder. I hit Stop."

“My personal life was another story. In love there’s no hiding: You have to let someone know who you are, but I didn’t have a clue who I was from one moment to the next.”

"Driving, with the top down, I’m reminded that I too can shift gears, face risk, handle inconvenience — and survive tragedy. My partner, eyes misting, says: 'You love that car. And your husband was an extraordinary man.'"

"I don’t remember his last name. He was handsome, with a nice smile and startlingly blue eyes. The sex was good, I think. We didn’t know each other well. We never would."

"He was everything a 10-year-old girl could ever hope for in a man. It was decided; I was in love. I started to wonder if the glow from my wedding dress would make him look washed-out. I began devising a plan in which he and I would end up '2gether 4ever,' as all my notebooks stated."

"In retrospect, maybe I should have known who I was the first time I went looking for a quiz called 'Am I gay?' But I didn’t."

“He was very handsome. He wore gray turtleneck sweaters and smelled like mint aftershave and old books. He was 55 and recently divorced for the second time. He was my father. He wasn't really my father.”

“We rallied, not with the adrenaline-pumping determination to win at all costs, but with the patience and control that came with not wanting it to be over: not the summer, not our son’s childhood, not this game, ever.”