“...I knew at times I have a loud chirp for such a petite bird, a chirp that some think is slanted, opinionated, and way too unladylike coming from a mouth as prim-looking as mine. Until I open it and the space between my two front teeth shoes. It's the space that everyone blames for my outspokenness, and although my parents don't really believe it, they use it, too. Whenever I say things that embarrass them, they're the first to tell people, 'It's that space between her two front teeth. Things just slip out of it, and she can't help it. We don't know what to do about it.”

“Imagination is what I have when I'm on my own. Pretending is what I do in the world. There's a space in between those two spaces, maybe like the space between life and death, but it's hard to navigate, and even harder to understand. Then again, I sometimes think that maybe that's just the way life is, and what I've been searching for is something different.”

“Space is all one space and thought is all one thought, but my mind divides its spaces into spaces into spaces and thoughts into thoughts into thoughts. Like a large condominium. Occasionally I think about the one Space and the one Thought, but usually I don't. Usually I think about my condominium.”

“It's hard when you miss someone so much, and you can't do anything about it. Because having that space between the two of you, is the only way to make things right.”

“I came to a sketch where the space between my arm and Greta’s arm, the shape of the place between us, had been darkened in. The negative space. That’s what Finn called it. He was always trying to get me to understand negative space. And I did. I could understand what he was saying, but it didn’t come naturally to me. I had to be reminded to look for it. To see the stuff that’s there but not there. In this sketch, Finn had colored in the negative space, and I saw that it made a shape that looked like a dog’s head. Or, no—of course, it was a wolf’s head, tilted up, mouth open and howling. It wasn’t obvious or anything. Negative space was kind of like constellations. The kind of thing that had to be brought to your attention. But the way Finn did it was so skillful. It was all in the way Greta’s sleeve draped and the way my shoulder angled in. So perfect. It was almost painful to look at that negative space, because it was so smart. So exactly the kind of thing Finn would think of. I touched my finger to the rough pencil lines, and I wished I could let Finn know that I saw what he’d done. That I knew he’d put that secret animal right between Greta and me.”

“Well, see, I think it's that most people don't like that lonely feeling. People don't like looking up and feeling small or lost. That's what I think prayer is all about. It doesn't matter which stories they believe in, they're all doing the same thing, kind of casting a line out to outer space, like there's something out there to connect to. It's like people make themselves part of something bigger that way, and maybe it makes them less afraid.”