“There is no longer any class outside the class of character, and no history to put your faith in.You can actually live as if you have no culture, no perspective particular to a date in time.You are an individual whose prime and solitary property is your own body.Dying becomes a hell beyond all reason or justice in this ahistorical context.”

“We have often had this particular exchange about climate and landscape and why we both feel so lonely here uprooted. It was what each of us had wanted of course.Besides wanting to experience a place we hated, we wanted to be insomniacs and loners, losers and drop-outs. To know the sky was the only location of meaning and joy left to us.”

“The wildness of the flower is all in the tone”

“Why does a heart wear its eyesinto helllike slivers of false sunshine”

“The ring comes whenever it willbecause it's darkwhere the mountains motherand being stuck in one spotis something to ring bells about”

“This business of really knowing people, deep down, including your own self, it is not something you can learn in school or from a book. It takes your whole being to do it—your eyes and your ears, your brain and your heart. Maybe your heart most of all.”

“...You can have this whole entire life, with all your opinions, your loves, your fears. Eventually those parts of you disappear. And then the people who could remember those parts of you disappear, and before long, all that's left is your name in some ledger. This...person -- she had a favorite food. She had friends and people she disliked. We don't even know how she died...I guess that's why I like preservation better than history. In preservation I feel like I can keep some of it from slipping away.”