“The body is ninetypercent water, ninetypercent thirst.I have been searchingfor a mineralthat drowns want.”

“The other fish think me proudor discontented with my station.The birds think I'm beneath them.Even submerged I am outof my element, which I fearthe Lord in his hasteforgot to invent. I senta letter to him once, pleading:make me this or make me that,limbo is hell upon a fish.I got a message back. It read:Don't despair, I made you purposelythat way—bounding breathlessinto space, the way I madeAdam and Eve, flittingbetween the field and ruined gardensof each other's airy arms.”

“We lost our everything,she said, which said everythingabout loss. My accumulationdictates my ruin; it’s differentfrom your dismantling, which can happen slowly or all at once.What’s crucial is a totalinventory, which may revealsome one element not obliterated.We lost our everything,she said—we—she repeated,meaning the we-ness remained,which in the end must be the seedof re-beginning, the seed that divines the plow, the ounceof dirt, the memory of digging.”

“When you call me close to tell me your body is not beautiful I want to summon the eyes and hidden mouths of stone and light and water to testify against you. ”

“Coroner's inquest: death by drowning. And he hasn't been to the sea-shore in ten years.”

“Everyone wants a world without sadness, but you can't have a rainbow without a little rain.”

“I want to summon the eyes and hidden mouths of stone and light and water to testify against you.”