“It was after sex, when there was still heat and mostly breathing, when there was still touch and mostly thought... it was as if the whole world could be reduced to the sound of a single string being played, and the only thing this sound could make me think of was you.”

“ardent, adj.It was after sex, when there was still heat and mostly breathing, when there was still touch and mostly thought... it was as if the whole world could be reduced to the sound of a single string being played, and the only thing this sound could make me think of was you. Sometimes desire is in the air; sometimes desire is liquid. And every now and then, when everything else is air and liquid, desire solidifies, and the body is the magnet that draws its weight.”

“if my whole world is going to crash down around me, then i am going to make the sound of the crashing”

“candid, adj."Most times, when I'm having sex, I'd rather be reading."This was, I admit, a strange thing to say on a second date.I guess I was just giving you a warning."Most times when I'm reading," you said, "I'd rather be having sex".”

“I don’t think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understandhopeful and selectively blind as the next guy, but because I don’t think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understandit on your own. It’s like when you’re starting to read. First, you learn the letters. Then, once you know what sounds the letters make, you use them to sound out words. You know that c-a-t leads to cat and d-o-g leads to dog. But then you have to make that extra leap, to understand that the word, the sound, the “cat” is connected to an actual cat, and that “dog” is connected to an actual dog. It’s that leap, that understanding, that leads to meaning. And a lot of the time in life, we’re still just sounding things out. We know the sentences and how to say them. We know the ideas and how to present them. We know the prayers and which words to say in what order. But that’s only spelling.”

“The most understandable thing in the world should be how minutes lead to hours, how hours lead to days, how days can make a year. And yet, this neat progression can still be surprising.”

“The sound of words as they're said is always different from the sound they make when they're heard, because the speaker hears some of the sound from the inside.”