“In the history of art there are periods when bread seems so beautiful that it nearly gets into museums.”

“History looks queer when you're standing close to it, watching where it is coming from and how it's being made.”

“I keep going over a sentence. I nag it, gnaw it, pat and flatter it.”

“She felt about a love set as a painter does about his masterpiece; each ace serve was a form of brushwork to her, and her fantastically accurate shot-placing was certainly a study in composition.”

“She had storms all her life, but she died peacefully.”

“what was the point in creating something that was so futile and so precious? everything beautiful was like that. a little bit of the true world. beauty said there was something more than just one fucking thing after another. time could rest for a moment, stop and that senseless motion. people thot beauty was bullshit, just a bandaide slapped over the abyss, but they couldnt be more wrong. beauty mattered, it was the only thing that fed you when everything turned to shit. ”

“She cut a small piece of the gravalax and put it on a piece of black bread, daintily spooned a bit of dill sauce onto it, and ate it like it was the last piece of food in the world. I tried to imitate her, eating so slowly, tasting the raw pink fish and the coarse, sour bread, salt and sugar around the rind, flavors and scents like colors on a palette, like the tones in music.”