“Lonliness evaporated off of them like the steam off dry ice, and by morning it was just a cloud on the ceiling of the room, then gone with the light. ”

“After a shower, I like to let gravity and evaporation dry me off as I stretch out naked in the sun on my neighbor’s porch.”

“Memories I had locked away have begun to break free, like shards of ice fracturing off an arctic shelf. In sleep, these broken floes drift toward the morning light of remembrance.”

“A room full of words that are nearly the truth but not quite, each note fluttering off the steam of its rose like a broken butterfly wing.”

“The hippogriff took off into the air. . . . He and his rider became smaller and smaller as Harry gazed after them . . . then a cloud drifted across the moon. . . . They were gone.”

“He looked around the room at all the stuff. But it wasn't just stuff and it wasn't just any girl grenade that had gone off in there. It was Nikki McKinney grenade.”