“Conversation was tedious; she wanted something big, and she believed that it would have come to her on the windswept platform of an electric tram.”

“She herself had certainly never been more alive. She felt electric. She would not have been surprised if sparks had come crackling out of the tips of her sober gloves.”

“She would tell him what she wanted in her life--her hopes and dreams for the future--and he would listen intently and then promise to make it all come true. And the way he said it made her believe him, and she knew how much he meant to her.”

“The platform underneath the balloon fell on her as she was trying to escape," she explained. "She was crushed.""I'd have been disappointed too.”

“She did not want conversation or company, just the presence of other people; she hoped the background drone of their lives would fill the empty spaces in her mind.”

“He wanted to believe her, but more importantly he believed in her because she knew already that he was quite lost, more lost than she would ever be, and yet she still believed in him.”