“Life, he thought, is a blatant act of imagination.”

“This is what happens when you live in dreams, he thought: you dream this and you dream that and you sleep right through your life.”

“He considered it a shame when people couldn't grasp the infinite-a failure not just of imagination but of simple vision.”

“His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.”

“He thought it might be the most intimate thing possible, to fall asleep next to someone in the afternoon.”

“He wished he could reassure his mother: a man wants many things in life, but when one of them is also the right thing, he would be a fool not to choose it.”

“And because he felt like he might burst open and because he lacked the dexterity in English to say all that he was thinking--how in his estimation, the more you lived the more regret and longing you suffered, that life was a glorious catastrophe--Pasquale Tursi said, only, "Yes.”