"Is he happy? By most measurements, yes, he believes he is. However, he has not forgotten the last chorus of Oedipus: Call no man happy until he is dead." Chapter 1, page 2.

"The company of women made of him a lover of women and, to a certain extent, a womanizer." Chapter 1, page 7.

"Why? Because a woman's beauty does not belong to her alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it." Chapter 2, page 16.

"Not rape, not quite that, but undesired nevertheless, undesired to the core. As though she had decided to go slack, die within herself for the duration, like a rabbit when the jaws of the fox close on its neck. So that everything done to her might be done, as it were, far away." Chapter 3, page 25.

"The two secretaries do not pretend to hide their curiosity. There...