Bel Canto  / Ann Patchett

 

 

He was more inclined to believe that only a fool would not feel about her exactly how he felt. There was nothing more to want than the privilege to sit and listen.

 

He wondered if it was possible to die from wanting someone so much.

 

All she needed was a kiss, a single kiss to clear her head. She was sure that with that one kiss she could study all night.

 

Could it be possible that such happiness had existed in the world all along and he had never once heard mention of it?

 

Everything. The way she looks at him. The way she chooses him. She’s always sitting with him and they can’t even talk.

 

They were hopeless, starving, reckless, and everything they did, they did again.

 

Love was an action. It came to you. It was not a choice. 

 

Wasn’t this exactly what love was? To want the best for someone?

 

Nothing made people as clumsy as fear and she could show him how not to be afraid.

 

It was all the fault of hope. Hope was a murderer.

 

There was no time for kissing, but she wanted him to know there would be in the future.

 

Now we can talk. Now that we have done away with time.

 

How much luck is one person entitled to in a night?

 

Perfect takes a longer time.

 

Beatrix left but didn’t run. She walked like a girl who knew exactly how much time she had.

 

He believed that life, true life, was something that was stored in music.

 

Certainly, he knew (though did not completely understand) that opera wasn’t for everyone, but for everyone he hoped there was something.

 

She had no talent for asking but she was a genius at being quiet.

 

He was not a loose button, a hem in need of shortening.

 

Maybe that was the answer, a sort of cycle of sinning and sorriness.

 

He disciplined himself to only want the things that were possible to have.

 

Love it, a rebellious bird that no one can tame.

 

How much does a house know?

 

The kind of love that offers itself so easily, so stupidly, is often not returned.

 

Death was a holy mystery.

 

He knew it to be false but he wanted some quiet time in which to enjoy it. The room looked wide open.

 

Most days it seemed like half the people he knew were dead.

 

We are the handmaidens of circumstance, you and I.

 

You must feel at times that everyone has something to say and no one knows how to say it.

 

He was beginning to feel more at ease with everything he had lost, everything he didn’t know.

 

It was the measurement of time which had gotten away from them. It was the interpretation of their lives in the very moment they were being lived.

 

The bird doesn’t know enough to be afraid and the person holding the gun will only look like a lunatic.

 

If a person knows what he wants is his life, he tends to be quiet about wanting anything else.

 

It’s easier to love a woman when you can’t understand a word she’s saying.

 

It makes you wonder. All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how.