“It was a pointed sigh, as sighs sometimes are, not one cast into the air to evaporate, but one calculated to descend, precisely and with great effect, on a target.”

“When I was with her, my skin sighed that the center of the world was precisely here.”

“There's a gentle sigh which descends like billowing silk upon the soul that accepts its coming death. It's a gentle pocket of air in the turbulence of everyday life... the silk settles around you as if it has been drifting towards the earth forever and has finally found it's target. The flag of defeat has been mercifully dropped and, in this action, the loss is not so bad. Defeat itself is defeated by the embrace of defeat, and death is swallowed up in victory.”

“Then came that sigh. I wish I had had a tape recorder handy every time in my life that I heard a boy sigh at the outset of urination. What a lovely sound. So much satisfaction. Girls sigh far less often before they pee, and not with the same devotion, I think. If only I had such a recording of boys' sighs. I would lie on a pillow in the sunlight of the late afternoon, sometimes listening to Chopin, sometimes Schubert, and sometimes to the sighs, seriatim, of all the boys about to pee.”

“Anyone with half a mind could see that," said Tiffany.Miss Tick sighed. "Yes. But sometimes it's so hard to find half a mind when you need one.”

“I have found a dream of beauty at which one might look all one's life and sigh.”