“...and thinking how the first scent of autumn is like coming across a lost album of childhood photographs.”

“The air was unusually warm and humid and I wondered if everyone else associated that sensation with childhood, with bare feet and wet grass and fireflies and heat lightning, and repeated entreaties to come in for dinner.”

“I see her again: her face wet with tears, her eyes searching mine. Slowly, very slowly, I reach my hands out and trace my fingertips along her skin, first down her neck, so warm and fragile, then across her breasts and down along the curves of her hips. Then with all my strength I wrap my arms around her and pull her toward me, but she is gone.”

“Yesterday I noticed a scent of bark outside that I had not smelled in years. While the bark lingered in my nose, flushing out ancient tree houses and campfires and games of tag and capture the flag, I noticed that the birds seemed to be singing louder than usual and the leaves on the trees looked more pronounced, almost exaggerated in their lush clarity.”

“Why does the longing for love have to be so acute, like a desperate thirst? Is it because love is wanting to be saved and we can never really be saved? Maybe love is really born of our fears. Love is the heart’s desire for a painkiller; a tearful plea for a great big epidural. Yes that’s it: love is the only anesthesia that really works. And so people with broken hearts are really those who are just coming to, and if you’ve ever seen someone come out of general anesthesia, you know that it looks a lot like the beginnings of a broken heart.”

“I think we all look for clues that we are not utterly alone... Clues we find in literature and paintings and music and even someone’s eyes; clues that demonstrate that someone else has felt the same indescribable feelings, seen the same things or passed by the spot even if it was by candlelight three hundred years ago. It means everything, like finding footprints in the sand of a deserted island.”

“How much are we the product of our faces and how much are they the product of our personalities? I’ve known people whose faces rested naturally in a smile and I’m certain their lives were much different because of that.”