“Then he's inside you, and your body remembers, each time, every man, even if you try to forget.”

“Literature can teach us how to live before we live, and how to die before we die. I believe that writing is practice for death, and for every (other) transformation human beings encounter.”

“The ragged cat drags its belly across where the grass is short and the stones are sharp, under the lilacs that have no flowers. The flower smell is gone and the white falls off the trees. Seeds, Lark says, little seeds with parachutes to fly them, Termite, all in your hair, and she runs her fingers through his hair, saying how long and how pretty. He wants the grass long and strong, sounding whispers when it moves, but the mower cuts it. The mower cuts and cuts like a yowling knife. He hears the mower cutting and smells the grass pouring out all over the ground, the green stain so sharp and wet it spills and spills. The mower cuts everything away and Nick Tucci follows the mower, cutting and cutting while the orange cat growls low to move its soft parts across the chipped sharp stones. Deep under the lilacs where no one sees, the orange cat waits for the roar to stop.”

“The writer's first affinity is not to a loyalty, a tradition, a morality, a religion, but to life itself, and to its representation in language.”

“Smoke veils the air like souls in drifting suspension, declining the war's insistence everyone move on.”

“If all stories are fiction, fiction can be true -- not in detail or fact, but in some transformed version of feeling. If there is a memory of paradise, paradise can exist, in some other place or country dimensionally reminiscent of our own. The sad stories live there too, but in that country, we know what they mean and why they happened. We make our way back from them, finding the way through a bountiful wilderness we begin to understand. Years are nothing: Story conquers all distance.”

“If you give me the five hundred dollars right now, I’ll let you dowhatever you want to me,” she whimpered.“Why are you being such a hard ass, Jeni?” he said with a wrysmile. He took her hand and slid it down the front of his bare torso. Hisabdominal muscles rippled under her hand. Then he slid her hand overhis erection. His cock twitched at the feel of her hand. “You know youwant me to fuck you.”“Then cough up the money, Hamilton!” Though her voice regainedits edge, her body was seconds away from crumbling. She wanted nothingmore than him buried deep inside her. She ached for him.”