Top Highlights

• a male character ponders why his relationship is so different twenty years down the line; the dynamic has changed, the power base has shifted. And he realises that as his own position in life has changed, it has skewed the way he views his partner.
• the sense of completion that comes from having another brain to bounce ideas off, the secret joy of watching another person across a crowded room and knowing exactly what they are thinking at that precise moment, the miracle of a partner who knows you better than you know yourself.
• Each expressed whatever was on his or her mind at the moment and it flowed back and forth in a fast-moving current of companionship.
• When you were in your eighties, that became most important. To feel that another human being truly understood the core of you and loved what they saw, while you felt the same about them – that was the best feeling of all.
• In some ways, he thought, it was the highest achievement of humanity. He had failed in all his other close relationships but at least he got the most important one right.