“Tess realized one of the great modern dating sadnesses: everyone is so used to the comforting glow of the computer screen that no one can go so far as to say "good morning" in public without being liquored up.”

“Why does the rain make us feel so romantic and strange? Maybe it's the fact that we are unnatural spectators of it, from inside our homes, and it is a reminder that we have the power to live our whole lives like this, if we choose. It's not the smell of fertile ground kicked up by raindrops, or the slick leaves, or the way we must amplify our voices to be heard over this larger presence. It's the power of the rooftop that makes us want to fuck under it.”

“Today, it's possible to read both erotica and books written for children without fear of social castigation.”

“The more bleach in the bedsheets, the greater Chastity's impulse to roll around in them. A party would be thrown, she decided, the kind that would tell a small story in the contents of the dustpan the next morning. Detached sequins and mint leaves muddled by high heels, shrimp tales mixed in with a few shards of broken glass, a crust of bread. She rolled in her bleached sheets until they wrapped around her like a storm, and she fell asleep in the eye of it.”

“They were in love! Carla wore her hair up and Andrew saw everything as a sign. They spent an entire afternoon sitting side by side in a coffee shop, taking more meaning than necessary from the world around them. A man wearing boxing gloves walked down the sidewalk in front of them and they took that to mean they would be together forever.”

“They don't understand it. They're not old enough to know the first instinct of irritation should be avoided in order to keep an open mind.”

“Emily felt the sweet strains of paranoia drifting back. They told her to look over her shoulder, and when she did, they told her to check the lock on the door, and when she did that, they told her that her fears had meaning and depth, and that she was right to feel them. Each shadow meant something different and strange, an unfamiliar animal or a line of weapons. These visions were terrifying, but after they went away, she felt a strange kind of peace that those things existed in the world, that her world was powerful enough to conjure them. My world, she thought.”