“Even as I think them, the words lose their context, dissolve into grains of absurdity in the vast ocean of day-to-day hunger.”

“I imagine that's what being full-dead is like. And emptiness vast and absolute.”

“Our cadaverous cadre has been walking for little over a day...”

“I think for a minute. Watching my wife fade into the distance, I put a hand on my heart. "Dead." I wave a hand toward my wife. "Dead." My eyes drift toward the sky and lose their focus. "Want it...to hurt. But...doesn't." Julie looks at me like she's waiting for more, and I wonder if I've expressed anything at all with my halting, mumbled soliloquy. Are my words ever actually audible, or do they just echo in my head while people stare at me, waiting? I want to change my punctuation. I long for exclamation marks, but I'm drowning in ellipses.”

“Just... ate," M says, frowning at me a little. "Two days...ago."I grab my stomach again. "Feel empty. Feel... dead."He nods. "Marr...iage.”

“Once again the absurdity of my inner thoughts overwhelms me, and I want to crawl out of my skin, escape my ugly, awkward flesh and be a skeleton, naked and anonymous.”

“I'm watching her talk. Watching her jaw move and collecting her words one by one as they spill from her lips. I don't deserve them. Her warm memories. I'd like to paint them over the bare plaster walls of my soul, but everything I paint seems to peel.”