“My mind is quiet now. There is no fire or ash, no sulfur or shattering glass. Only silence, empty and cold.”
“I changed my mind. Get out of my house now. I'll set your things on fire and mail you the ashes.”
“Snow-quiet, sleep-silent, only the fun-fire faraway songsinging of children; and the room was blue with cold, colder than the cold of fairytales: lie down my heart among the igloo flowers of snow.”
“In exchange for my silence, I want a box of quiet. Empty—and full. That’s also how I like my morning coffee at night.”
“My glass is not only half-empty, I'm convinced someone spit in it.”
“Her mere proximity gave him the most peculiar sensation, like the kind of heat sent out when a log shatters to ash in a fire.”