“She became confused when she stepped onto an escalator that wasn't working.”

“She was shining a light on us, she was coming into being, endlessly being formed and reformed as the muscles in her face worked at smiling and speaking, as the electronic dots swarmed.”

“He liked to talk about the anatomy of racecars, motorcycles, hunting rifles, how things work, and she liked to listen. It was a mark of the distance between them that she listened so eagerly, the perennial miles, the weeks and months”

“But she missed simple things, parents' birthdays, a rug underfoot, nights when she didn't have to sleep in a zipped bag. She began to think she was inadequate to the strict plain shapes of churchly faith. Head pains hit her at the end of the day. They came with a shining, an electrochemical sheen, light from out of nowhere, brain-made, the eerie gleam of who you are.”

“But then it came time for me to make my journey—into America. [... N]o coincidence that my first novel is called Americana. That became my subject, the subject that shaped my work. When I get a French translation of one of my books that says 'translated from the American', I think, 'Yes, that's exactly right.”

“There was religion, then there was God. Lianne wanted to disbelieve. Disbelief was the line of travel that led to clarity of thought and purpose. Or was this simply another form of superstition? She wanted to trust in the forces and processes of the natural world, this only, perceptible reality and scientific endeavor, men and women alone on earth. She knew there was no conflict between science and God. Take one with the other. But she didn't want to. There were the scholars and philosophers she'd studied in school, books she'd read at thrilling dispatches, personal, making her shake at times, and there was the sacred art she'd always loved. Doubters created this work, and ardent believers, and those who'd doubted and then believed, and she was free to think about doubt and believe simultaneously. But she didn't want to. God would crowd her, make her weaker. God would be a presence that remained unimaginable. She wanted this only, to snuff out the pulse of the shaky faith she'd held for much of her life.”

“The instant he knew he loved her, she slipped down his body and out of his arms. Then she wedged herself through the narrow opening in the boards and he watched her cross the street. Nothing moved out there. She was the lone stroke of motion, crew and extras gone, equipment gone, and she was cool and silvery slim and walking head-high, with technical precision, toward the last trailer in the service station, where she would find her clothes, dress quickly and disappear.”