Mr. Peanut - Adam Ross

• There is the same thrill of one-way glass, Hastroll thought, as in hearing the sound of your voice recorded. Or catching sight of yourself in the background of a photograph. Or passing yourself on a television screen in an electronics storefront--a peep of a view as your image walks toward you. For you are always a secret to yourself, Hastroll thought. But there are glimpses and hints and clues.

• Men dream of starting over. Not even necessarily with another woman. They dream of a clean slate, of disappearing, of walking off a plane on a layover and making a new life for themselves in a strange city--Grand Rapids, say, or Nashville. They dream of an apartment all their own, of silence, of joining Delta Force and fighting in Iraw, of introducing themselves by the nickname they'd always wished they had. Of a time and place where they can use everything they know now that they hadn't known then--that is, before they were married. And then they might be happy.

• When people travel, and especially when they fly, they see the choice to do so as unique. That's part of the lore, its miracle and romance.

• That picture of his wife's face: her expression well beyond exhaustion and grief and elation, in a state of having been saved and having saved herself. The picture of her relief. Of having seen something terrible through. he wondered, was that what a woman looked like after she gave birth? Did she have the same expression of amazement and pain and of loss and gain? So much risk in the making, David thought. Making life could utterly break your heart.

• "You know," his father finally said, "as I've grown older, my ideas about sin have changed. I used to believe that sins were things you did, but I don't think that now."..."I think sins are what you ignore."

• "Can I tell you something I have learned about love?"..."If you love someone truly, and they love you, there's no such thing as a confession."

• She kissed him, and the taste of her wet lips was salvation.

• It occurred to Pepin that you could be married to any number of people, that you were simply trading on what you were willing to give and take, on whatever good came with the bad. And it was also a sad truth that you might not be equipped for certain kinds of ease of happiness. Why, because that might set you free? Because nothing, then was determined? That everything was wide open? Was that the source of the fear?