“Cross the threshold, beauty girl," he says."You cross mine," she says back.”

“He had the vague sense of standing on a threshold, the crossing of which would change everything.”

“Thank you," I say, pounding his back probably too hard. "That was the best damned passenger-seat driving I've ever seen in my life." He pats my uninjured cheek with his greasy hand. "I did it to save myself, not you," he says. "Believe me when I say that you did not once cross my mind. " I laugh. "Nor you mine," I say.”

“Say it.”“Say what?”“Order me to tell you I love you.”The instant the words came out of my mouth, his eyes closed, a shadow of pain crossed his face and he dropped his head to the side of mine. He remembered.He missed that too.”

“One of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement. When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own.”

“That is the strangeness of language: it crosses the boundaries of the body, is at once inside and outside, and it sometimes happens that we don't notice the threshold has been crossed.”