“There is so much jasmine and nightshade in the garden that we all wake with lyrical headaches.”

“The wind, one brilliant day, calledto my soul with an odor of jasmine."In return for the odor of my jasmine,I'd like all the odor of your roses.""I have no roses; all the flowersin my garden are dead.""Well then, I'll take the withered petalsand the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain."the wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself:"What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?”

“We’ll meet again in Lvov, my love and I…” Tatiana hums, eating her ice cream, in our Leningrad, in jasmine June, near Fontanka, the Neva, the Summer Garden, where we are forever young.”

“We sow the seed of deadly nightshade and wish it to bear lilies and roses!”

“But it's not so much a headache as possession, my head an occupied territory, and my normal self, a disenfranchised native populace, driven underground.”

“We will all wake up semi-angels, If we wake at all.”