Ben Waddingham

“Someone should sing, Silver thinks, and then someone does-a low, somewhat hoarse man's voice singing "Amazing Grace" quietly but with great sincerity. Ruben's eyes grow wide, and almost in the same instant that it occurs to Silver that "Amazing Grace" is not sung at Jewish funerals, he recognizes the singing voice as his own.

But Mrs. Zeiring is looking at him, not with anger or surprise, but a strange half-smile, and he decides that the only thing worse than spontaneously breaking into a Christian hymn at a Jewish funeral while dressed for a wedding would be to not finish it. So he does...”
― Jonathan Tropper, One Last Thing Before I Go

“Lost love belongs in a three-minute song, pullling back feelings from a time when they came unbidden, recalling the infatuation, the walking on sunshine that cannot last and the pain of its loss, whether through parting or the passage of time, reminding us that we are emotional beings”
― Graeme Simsion, The Best of Adam Sharp

“If I could tell her the truth, I would say I’m looking for flaws. Because that’s what you do when you’re in love with someone you don’t want to be in love with. You look for imperfections in their skin, oddities in their features. You picture how they will age, where time will tarnish them. You try to catch them at harsh angles, discern some measure of awkwardness where their limbs connect to their trunks. You search for these deficiencies with an air of desperation, ready to lay claim to whatever you find, to inflate it grotesquely in your mind, and in doing so set yourself free. I would say that I’m paralyzed, that I see things I can’t reach for, have itches I can’t scratch. And then there are the parts of me that I can’t feel anymore at all. That my days are filled with a quiet dread that has as much to do with her, or at least the potential of her,”
― Jonathan Tropper, Everything Changes

“And I have to say, books haven’t helped much with all this. Because whenever you read anything about love, whenever anyone tries to define it, there’s always a state or an abstract noun, and I try to think of it like that. But actually, love is… Well, it’s just you. And when you go, it’s gone. Nothing abstract about it.”
― Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked