“He didn't like religion, hadn't liked it for years, but he adored churches, loved them like old scientific instruments whose time is long past but are nevertheless fascinating and strange.”

“Now that the real and the imagined had collided, he wondered if she, like he, longed for the past, for the normal. He wondered if normalcy was something, like vision or silence, you didn't realize was precious until you lost it.”

“I wanted to love my father. I wanted to, but I didn't. Sometimes I didn't even like him. he hadn't been a guy you could really get next to, because in a way he was never where you thought he was.”

“I don't want Church to be like all those dead pets! she burst out, suddenly tearful and furious. I don't want Church to ever be dead! He's my cat! He's not God's cat! Let God have all the damn old cats He wants, and kill them all! Church is mine!”

“But if it couldn't be love and it didn't feel like lust, what was it? Like? Did he like her? Of course, he did, but that word didn't capture his feelings, either. It was a little too... vague and soft around the edges. People liked ice cream. People liked to watch television. It meant nothing, and it didn't come close to explaining why, for the first time, he felt the urge to tell someone the truth...”

“I adore the way he looks at me sometimes, as if love is a quantity he cannot measure scientifically, because it multiplies too quickly.”