“The future waited for him to keep his appointment.”

“had felt time settle over itself, imbricate and fix into place the vertigo of future aligning with the present.”

“silent desperation of everything they never said - gaps and absences in every conversation, the past circumscribing the present, the future hemming in the past.”

“In our memories the stories of our lives defy chronology, resist transcription: past ambushes present, and future hurries into history.”

“This is not real suffering, she tells herself. this is only a matter of reprogramming her picture of the future. Of understanding that the line of descendancy is not continuous but arbitrary.”

“Here was the worst curse: he managed to force the dream from his conscious mind often enough that when it returned to him (opening the pantry door, say, recalling the sweep of floodwater), the experience of it became fresh and bleeding once more.”

“His heart was a catapult in his chest.”