“My goldfish is swimming around all excited inside the fishbowl on the fridge so I reach up and drop a Valium in its water.”

“Now and then goldfish splish and gleam, like new pennies dropped in water.”

“Shelby trailed off when she spotted the goldfish swimming in circles inside the Waterford. "Well, he's come up in the world," she said with a jerky laugh. "I don't think he appreciates it.”

“I remember a story I once heard about drowning: that when you fall into cold water it's not that you drown right away but that the cold disorients you and makes you think that down is up and up is down, so you may be swimming, swimming, swimming for your life in the wrong direction, all the way toward the bottom until you sink. That's how I feel, as though everything has been turned around.”

“The distance a goldfish swims is not controlled by the bowl.”

“It was like I was inside a fishbowl in the middle of a typhoon, and everyone else was on the outside cluelessly enjoying lovely weather.”