She came to admire him so much that his love for her affected her own self-esteem: She liked herself better because of him.

She did love him, you know... It was a selfish, possessive love, but it was all she knew how to give.

She respected her husband in the same way as she respected the General Post Office, as something large, secure and fixed: and though she knew the small number of his talents she appreciated his abstract value as a male.

... and she loved a boy very, very much — even more than she loved herself.

She’d been happier with him than she had ever thought imaginable, but only now she understood it wasn’t because their DNA had dictated it, but because she’d opened herself up to the concept of love.

She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet.

“I liked him very much,” said Constant.
“The insane, on occasion, are not without their charms,” said Beatrice.

She knew that he loved her above all else, more than anything in the world, but only for his own sake.

She came to admire him so much that his love for her affected her own self-esteem: She liked herself better because of him. And since he clearly felt the same, there was a kind of infinite regress of love and respect underlying their relationship. At least, that was how she described it to herself. In the presence of so many of her friends, she had felt an undercurrent of loneliness.

He is tremendously strong, she thought, and liked the idea, even as she had feared that strength when she first met him

She liked solitude and the thoughts of her own interesting and creative mind. She liked to be comfortable. She liked hotel rooms, thick towels, cashmere sweaters, silk dresses, oxfords, brunch, fine stationery, overpriced conditioner, bouquets of gerbera, hats, postage stamps, art monographs, maranta plants, PBS documentaries, challah, soy candles, and yoga. She liked receiving a canvas tote bag when she gave to a charitable cause. She was an avid reader (of fiction and nonfiction), but she never read the newspaper, other than the arts sections, and she felt guilty about this. Dov often said she was bourgeois. He meant it as an insult, but she knew that she probably was. Her parents were bourgeois, and she adored them, so, of course, she had turned out bourgeois, too. She wished she could get a dog, but Dov's building didn't allow them.

She admired him; she was used to clutching her hands together in his wake and heaving audible sighs.

She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself.

Odd things made him love her.