“Although she was giddy with exhaustion, sleep was a lover who refused to be touched....”

“I sleep. I inhabit sleep firmly, willing it, wielding it, pushing away dreams, refusing, refusing. Sleep is my lover now, my forgetting, my opiate, my oblivion.”

“‎All she felt was mind-numbing exhaustion, and a desperate yearning for the sweet forgetfulness of sleep.”

“Evil can never touch the person who refuses to accept it.”

“Don't you want to be neighbors?""No." he said. "I want to be lovers. Sleep-together lovers. Wake-up together lovers. One bed."Oh, God, she was going to fall in love. She could feel it happening.”

“I sleep all day. Noises flit around the house- garbage truck in the alley, rain, tree rapping against the bedroom window. I sleep. I inhabit sleep firmly, willing it, wielding it, pushing away dreams, refusing, refusing. Sleep is my lover now, my forgetting, my opiate, my oblivion. [...] It is afternoon, it is night, it is morning. Everything is reduced to this bed, this endless slumber that makes the days into one day, makes time stop, stretches and compacts time until it is meaningless.”