“Memories were just photos printed on synapses.”

“In the dark, dank world of the Tunnels, I would call upon this memory. And there would be a flicker of candlelight. If only for a moment. I closed my eyes, as if my eyelids were the levers of a printing press, etching the fibers into my mind. Memories were outside Cole’s reach. As long as I held them, memories were mine and mine alone.”

“Synapses in motion tend to stay in motion. Synapses at rest tend to stay at rest.”

“From the photo albums, every single print of her had been peeled away. Shots of the both of us together had been cut, the parts with her neatly trimmed away, leaving my image behind. Photos of me alone or of mountains and rivers and deer and cats were left intact. Three albums rendered into a revised past. It was as if I'd been alone at birth, alone all my days, and would continue alone.”

“Books are like flypaper, memories cling to the printed pages better than anything else.”

“A photo says, you were happy, and I wanted to catch that. A photo says, you were so important to me that I put down everything else to come watch.”