" what she wanted was love, and the best way to go looking for it was through sex. but it never worked that way, and the sex just made her lonelier. i understood that, as it had made me lonelier too. i couldn’t ever remember being lonely before, certainly not in this way, until i had seen the edge of all the ways you could be with another person, which brought up all the myriad ways that person could never be there for you.

— ann patchett, truth and beauty: a friendship