“All these mirrorscarnival distortionsof selves we never were.”

“Life is fluid. We are the ghosts of all the people we might become, peering forward to catch a glimpse of what could be, our future selves staring back at us, at who we might have been, never were.”

“Birds were like dinosaurs' better selves. They had short lives and long summers. We all should be so lucky as to leave behind such heirs.”

“In a strange way we were free. We'd reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: all of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of our selves”

“The dark emotions everyone hid in their depths weren't all of who they really were. They weren't their true selves.”

“We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It's our own concept—our own selves—that we love.”