“This house is about two dictionaries away from caving in,' she'd say, 'and you're buying duplicates?”

“The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of the ordinary, dictionary-defined discourse. Familiarity creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that carries reference to the story the two lovers are weaving together and that cannot be readily understood by others.”

“She'd say amazing things sometimes. "Once you're alive," she'd say, "you cant ever be dead.”

“A tiger's DNA is also a 'duplicate me' program but it contains an almost fantastically large digression as an essential part of the efficient execution of its fundamental message. That digression is a tiger, complete with fangs, claws, running muscles, stalking and pouncing instincts. The tiger's DNA says, 'Duplicate me by the round-about route of building a tiger first.' At the same time, antelope DNA says, 'Duplicate me by the round-about route of building an antelope first, complete with long legs and fast muscles, complete with timorous instincts and finely honed sense organs tuned to the danger from tigers.”

“No, I`m putting it away, trying to buy a house for my family. The goal is to use the money to move into a big house, so my daughter can have a garden.”

“When you're on the other side of it," she says, "fifty-two years can seem like about fifty-two minutes.”