“It surged inside me, setting every nerve ending alight, making me feel like I could snap my fingers and stop time, cut the stars from the heavens.”

“For so long, it was just my secret. It burned inside me, and I felt like I was carrying something important, something that made me who I was and made me different from everybody else. I took it with me everywhere, and there was never a moment when I wasn't aware of it. It was like I was totally awake, like I could feel every nerve ending in my body. Sometimes my skin would almost hurt from the force of it, that's how strong it was. Like my whole body was buzzing or something. I felt almost, I don't know, noble, like a medieval knight or something, carrying this secret love around with me.”

“If you could offer me a guarantee, Ely, a guarantee that the hurt that makes my heart feel like a boulder sitting inside my chest, beatless, if I knew this hurt would eventually go away and I could feel hope again - for me, for you, for us - then maybe my lips could "unlock" now and we could get on with this. The End.”

“I wonder,” he said, “whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again...”

“She carried a knife inside of herself now, one that was always cutting her. She could feel it every time she swallowed, every time her thoughts strayed from the splendor of the wild.”

“I live to feel her fingers move inside of me like this. The busmakes another stop. A fat man climbs aboard, hauling himself up the stairs. I would kill him for one more moment with her fingers inside me. I don’t have to. She gives me my moment for free. He lives because of her generosity. We all live because of her generosity.”