“When she sees the leaves fall, they raise no other idea in her mind than that winter is approaching.”

“Only superficial minds approach an idea with delicacy.”

“My mother could never have said she loved fall, but as she walked down the steps with her suitcase in hand toward the red Monte Carlo her husband had been waiting in for nearly an hour, she could have said that she respected its place as a mediator between two extremes. Fall came and went, while winter was endured and summer was revered. Fall was the repose that made both possible and bearable, and now here she was was with her husband next to her, heading headlong into an early-fall afternoon with only the vaguest ideas of who they were becoming and what came next.”

“She raised one leg and gave me all her weight as I dipped her. She either trusted me or wanted to fall.”

“When children paint, they express their ideas rather than their perception, and when Picasso had recourse to such a technique, then that was his personal response to his approaching death.”

“With slow care rather than stealth we must approach the subject of a certain woman. Her wildness is of such degree, I fear approaching her too quickly even in a story. Should I move recklessly, I might startle even the idea of her into sudden flight.”