Bel Canto

by Ann Patchett

There was nothing more to want than the privilege to sit and listen.

What she prayed for was nothing. She prayed that God would look on them and see the beauty of their existence and leave them alone.

He wondered sometimes if it was love or just a lack of rest that had twisted such a longing in his heart.

Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. Don’t you think? It is a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are the spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world’s greatest soprano. Not everyone can be the artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see.”

“It’s easier to love a woman when you can’t understand a word she’s saying,” Roxane said.

If someone loves you for what you can do then it’s flattering, but why do you love them? If someone loves you for who you are then they have to know you, which means you have to know them.” Roxane smiled at Gen.

Love was action. It came to you. It was not a choice.

It was that now there was something that was strictly between himself and one other person, that it was so completely their own that it would have been pointless to even try to speak of it to someone else. He wondered now if everyone had a private life.

He was in love, and never had he felt such kindness towards another person. Never had he received such kindness. Maybe the private life wasn’t forever. Maybe everyone got it for a little while and then spent the rest of their lives remembering.

Wasn’t this exactly what love was? To want what was best for someone, to help them along

“It makes you wonder. All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how.”