"Sheri Donatti had the kind of personality that was just coming into vogue in Greenwich Village in 1946. This was a time when Kafka was the rage, as were the Abstract Expressionists and revisionism in psychoanalysis." (Chapter 1, page 3)

"I thought all character was a form of shabbiness, a wearing away of surfaces. I saw this shabbiness as our version of ruins, the relic of a short history. The sadness of the buildings was literature—I was twenty-six, and sadness was a stimulant, even an aphrodisiac." (Chapter 1, page 8)

"To open a bookshop is one of the persistent romances, like living off the land or sailing around the world." (Chapter 4, page 28)

"Living with Sheri was a process of continual adjustment. It was like living in a foreign city: You learn the language, the currency, the style of the people. . .still, you never succeed in feeling at home. You remain a...