“Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all others were making ships.”

“Hold still," my father would say, while I held the ship in the bottle and he burned away the strings he'd raised the mast with and set the clipper ship free on its blue putty sea. And I would wait for him, recognizing the tension of that moment when the world in the bottle depended, solely, on me.”

“The city they are building asks you to stay; remind yourself what is worth keeping, while the lighthouse of your moan warns the ship of your heart that he is a stone.”

“It's one thing if your hobby is to put ships inside a bottle, but a deer in the headlights!... That's a real talent”

“My love is like an empty bottle of wine. If you’re wondering, my ex wife drank it all.”

“I sat at a table in my shadowy kitchen, staring down a bottle of Boone's FarmHard Lemonade, when a magic fluctuation hit. My wards shivered and died, leaving my home stripped of its defenses. The TV flared into life, unnaturally loud in the empty house.I raised my eyebrow at the bottle and bet it that another urgent bulletin was on.The bottle lost."Urgent bulletin!" Margaret Chang announced. "The Attorney General advises all citizens that any attempt at summoning or other activities resulting in the appearance of a supernaturally powerful being can be hazardous to yourself and to other citizens.""No shit," I told the bottle.”