“For all the books in his possession, he still failed to read the stories written plain as day in the faces of the people around him.”

“Please," he added. "I meant to say, please. I've thought it all through. I've thought of nothing else. I haven't read a book in weeks!”

“People move around so much in the world, things get lost.”

“His plastic hand is up and he's waggling his fingers, I pretend I don't see. I'm not going to give him my fingers, I need them for me.”

“Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.”

“I was beautiful, or so my father told me. My oval mirror showed me a face with nothing written on it. I had suitors aplenty but wanted none of them: their doggish devotion seemed too easily won. I had an appetite for magic, even then. I wanted something improbably and perfect as a red rose just opening.”

“Jo claimed that the reason people survived breakups was that within days of the amputation, Mother Nature started reminding you of what you had been doing without, what could have been better, all the samll discontents you had been filing away.”