“You know how your eyes can deceive you at times--how a group of shapes and shadows can take on a certain form and then shift into another? It wasn't really like that; there was no physical change in him, he was exactly the same as he'd always been. I knew every line of his long body and every curl on his disheveled black head. I'd just never seen him before. you know what I'm trying to say, don't you? The change is in the heart.”

“Children of the Law,’ I said, ‘he is not dead.’ M’ling turned his sharp eyes on me. ‘He has changed his shape - he has changed his body,’ I went on. ‘For a time you will not see him. He is.. there’ - I pointed upward - ‘where he can watch you. You cannot see him. But he can see you. Fear the Law.”

“Do you write every day?' 'Oh, no. Oh, I sort of try. I don't work very hard, really. Really I'm on vacation. All the time. Or you could say I work all the time, too. It comes to the same thing.' He'd said all this before, to others; he wondered if he'd said it to her. 'It's like weekend homework. Remember? There wasn't ever a time you absolutely had to do it - there was always Saturday, then Sunday - but then there wasn't ever a time when it wasn't there to do, too.' 'How awful.' ("Novelty")”

“He tilted his head, eyes peering deep inside of me in a way that made me feel exposed, like I'd never really been seen before, yet at the same time safe, like he'd never tell a soul what he'd found.”

“I'm not going to try and change your mind.""If you're here, you accept it's my choice. This is the first thing I've been in control of since the accident.""I know."And there it was. He knew it, and I knew it. There was nothing left for me to do. Do you know how hard it is to say nothing ? When every atom of you strains to do the opposite? I just tried to be, tried to absorb the man I loved through osmosis, tried to imprint what I had left of him on myself. I did not speak...”

“Well, the husband was very depressed for the longest while. Even after he found out that his wife was going to pull through, he was still very depressed. Not about the accident, though. I mean, the accident was one thing, but it wasn't everything. I'd get up to his mouth-hole, you know, and he'd say no, it wasn't the accident exactly but it was because he couldn't see her through his eye-holes. He said that was what was making him feel bad. Can you imagine? I'm telling you, the man's heart was breaking because he couldn't turn his goddamn head and see his goddamn wife.”