Another Country by James Baldwin

"Perhaps such secrets, the secrets of everyone, were only expressed when the person laboriously dragged them into the light of the world, imposed them on the world, and made them a part of the world's experience. Without this effort, the secret place was merely a dungeon in which the person perished; without this effort, indeed, the entire world would be an uninhabitable darkness; and she saw, with a dreadful reluctance, why this effort was so rare." -- pp 112

"Strangers' faces held no secrets because the imagination does not invest them with any. But the face of a lover is an unknown precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment." -- pp172

"People don't have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you're dead, when they'lve killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn't have any character. They weep big, bitter tears, not for you. For themselves, because they've lost their toy." -- pp265

"My God. Aren't we a wonderful pair of slobs. Sitting here in this dark place, full of self-pity and alcohol, while our lovers are out there in the real world, seeing real people, doing real things, bringing real bacon into real homes - are they real? are they? Sometimes I wake up at night with that question in my mind and I walk around the house and go and look at the children. I don't want them to be like that. I don't want them to be like me, either." -- pp276