“You never get involved in the people's lives? The ones you're inhabiting?"I shake my head."You try to leave the lives the way you found them.""Yeah.""But what about Justin? What made that so different?""You," I say.”

“You see, Dash -- I was never the girl in your head. And you were never the boy in my head. I think we both knew that. It's only when we try to make the girl or boy in our head real that the true trouble comes. I did that with Carlos, and it was a bad failure. Be careful what you're doing, because no one is ever who you want them to be. And the less you really know them, the more likely you are to confuse them with the girl or boy in your head.”

“What is it about the moment you fall in love? How can such small measure of time contain such enormity?I suddenly realize why people believe in deja vu, why people believe they've lived past lives, because there is no way the years I've spent on this earth could possibly encapsulate what I'm feeling.The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations -- all of them rearranging themselves so that this precise, remarkable intersection could happen.”

“So what else can I tell you?" I asked. "I mean, to get you to reveal Lily to me."She triangled her fingers under her chin. "Let's see. Are you a bed wetter?""Am I a...?""Bed wetter. I am asking if you are a bed wetter."I knew she was trying to get me to blink. But I wouldn't."No, ma'am. I leave my beds dry.""Not even a little drip every now and then?""I'm trying hard to see how this is germane.""I'm gauging your honesty. What is the last periodical you read methodically?""Vogue. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, that's mostly because I was in my mother's bathroom, enduring a rather long bowel movement. You know, the kind that requires Lamaze.""What adjective do you feel the most longing for?"That was easy. "I will admit I have a soft spot for fanciful.""Let's say I have a hundred million dollars and offer it to you. The only condition is that if you take it, a man in China will fall off his bicycle and die. What do you do?""I don't understand why it matters whether he's in China or not. And of course I wouldn't take the money."The old woman nodded."Do you think Abraham Lincoln was a homosexual?""All I can say for sure is that he never made a pass at me.""Are you a museumgoer?""Is the pope a churchgoer?""When you see a flower painted by Georgia O'Keefe, what comes to mind?""That's just a transparent ploy to get me to say the word vagina, isn't it? There. I said it. Vagina.”

“I thought about the word 'profile' and what a weird double meaning it had. We say we're looking at a person's profile online, or say a newspaper is writing a profile on someone, and we assume it's the whole them we're seeing. But when a photographer takes a picture of a profile, you're only seeing half the face... It's never the way you would remember seeing them. You never remember someone 'in profile.' You remember them looking you in the eye, or talking to you. You remember an image that the subject could never see in a mirror, because you are the mirror. A profile, photographically, is perpendicular to the person you know.”

“catalyst, n.It surprised me — surprises me still — that you were the first one to say it.I was innocent, in a way, expecting those three words to appear boldface with music. But instead, it was such an ordinary moment: The moviewas over, and I stood up to turn off the TV. A few minutes had passed from the end of the final credits, and we’d been sitting there on the couch,your legs over mine, the side of your hand touching the side of my hand. The video stopped and the screen turned blue. “I’ll get it,” I said, and washalfway to the television when you said, “I love you.”I never asked, but I’ll always wonder: What was it about that moment that made you realize it? Or, if you’d known it for awhile, what compelledyou to say it then? It was welcome, so welcome, and in my rush to say that I loved you, too, I left the television on, I let that light bathe us for a littlelonger, as I returned to the couch, to you. We held there for awhile, not really sure what would happen next.”

“I remembered a time we were going through magazines. There was this one model who looked icy to the touch, in total control. I told you that, andyou said, “That’s what makes it a good photograph. You think you know what’s going on in her head. But the truth? No matter how good aphotograph is, you can never tell what’s going on in the person’s mind. There’s no way to get from here” (you pointed to the room) “to there” (youpointed to her head).”