“(letters) They were like a kelp forest, they cast a weird green light, you could get lost there, become tangled and drown....still eyeing the letters like Portuguese man-of-wars floating on the innocent sea.”

“I felt like time was a great sea, and I was floating on the back of a turtle, and no sails broke the horizon.”

“The pearls weren't really white, they were a warm oyster beige, with little knots in between so if they broke, you only lost one. I wished my life could be like that, knotted up so that even if something broke, the whole thing wouldn't come apart.”

“She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.”

“this was the wonderful thing about strangers. they were big blank pieces of paper, you could draw watever you like on their impresionable surfaces”

“at least if you were ignorant you could do wat you wanted. you had no idea wat had been acheived in the past. you were free instead of chewed at by bleeding impotence, dissolved away like a pearl in acid”

“I thought how tenuous the links were between mother and children between friends family things you think are eternal. Everything could be lost more easily than anyone could imagine.”