“Every drop of rain hit the ground with such force it bounced back up again, giving the earth the appearance of something boiling.”

“There was such an incredible logic to kissing, such a metal-to-magnet pull between two people that it was a wonder that they found the strength to prevent themselves from succumbing every second. Rightfully, the world should be a whirlpool of kissing into which we sank and never found the strength to rise up again.”

“It was too much work to remember things you might not have again, and so one by one they opened up their hands and let them go.”

“Marina brushed her hand across the back of her neck and dislodged something with a hard shell.She had learned in time to brush instead of slap as slapping only served to pump the entire contents of the insect, which was doubtlessly already burrowed into the skin with some entomological protuberance, straight into the bloodstream.”

“Society was nothing but a long, dull dinner party conversation in which one was forced to speak to one's partner on both the left and the right.”

“Like her mother and all her mother's people before her, those inexhaustible blondes who staked their claims in verdant prairies, Marina was cut from Minnesota, the soil and the starry night. Instead of growing up inquisitive and restless, she had developed a profound desire to stay, as if her center of gravity was so low it connected her directly to this particular patch of earth.”

“No one tells the truth to people they don't actually know, and if they do it is a horrible trait. Everyone wants something smaller, something neater than the truth.”