“We knew exactly what we wanted in each other. And even so, it ended. One day it stopped, as if the film simply slipped off the reel. ”

“One of these days they'll be making a film where the whole human race gets wiped out in a nuclear war, but everything works out in the end. ”

“Even so, everything was ever so slightly off, as if little by little the tracing paper had slipped irretrievably from the lines of summers past.”

“My husband and I see each other only on weekends, and generally get along well. We're like good friends, life partners able to spend some pleasant time together. We talk about all sorts of things, and we trust each other implicitly. Where and how he has a sex life I don't know,and I don't really care. We never make love, though -- never even touch each other. I feel bad about it, but I don't want to touch him. I just don't want to.”

“And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they're nothing more than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we'd be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing.”

“SO THAT’S MY LIFE—or my life before I stopped sleeping—each day pretty much a repetition of the one before. I used to keep a diary, but if I forgot for two or three days, I’d lose track of what had happened on which day. Yesterday could have been the day before yesterday, or vice versa. I’d sometimes wonder what kind of life this was. Which is not to say that I found it empty. I was—very simply—amazed. At the lack of demarcation between the days. At the fact that I was part of such a life, a life that had swallowed me up so completely. At the fact that my demarcation between the days. At the fact that I was part of such a life, a life that had swallowed me up so completely.”

“My face, my self, what would they mean to anybody? Just another stiff. So this self of mine passes some other's self on the street — what do we have to say to each other? Hey there! Hi ya!That's about it. Nobody raises a hand. No one turns around to take another look.”