“Heartbreak could be lived with if it weren't accompanied by regret.”

“No one is going to hear what she says whether she speaks or not. Simply she could close her eyes and never speak again. She could suck all of the air in this room-every dust mote, every atom-into her body and hide it inside her…”

“We must imagine our lives well. We must engage our conscience. Conscience is the voice of God in the nature and heart of man.”

“The first shot causes warm rain to fall on Diana's arms from the sky. The second plants a mirrored jewel in the left temporal lobe of her brain…a place she could have named on a quiz but which now seems to be the place where the future is imagined, the place where what would have been is.”

“We can talk to one another on telephones in banks, in cars, in line. No more sitting on the floor attached to a cord while everybody listens. No more standing outside the booth in the cold, fingering an adulterous dime. Wesend each other mail without stamps. Watch television without antennas. Wear seatbelts, smoke less, and never on a bus, never in the lobby while we’re waiting for the lawyer to call on us.Nowhere now, a typewriter ribbon. Quaintly the record album’s scratch and spin. Our groceries, scanned. Pump our own gas. Take off our shoes before boarding our plane. Those towers: Gone. And Pluto’s no longer a planet: Forget it. I could go onand on, but you’re still dead and nothing’s any different.”

“your life can change in an instant. that instant can last forever.”

“--Your headache--I am trying to imagine itYour head is in your handsThe nurse is pouring pills onto a plateNovember againToo lateYour headacheIt is a birdWounded, in leavesIts sweet bird’s nest is full of pain in a distant placeNovemberThere are daisiesIn the ruined garden, still blooming strangelyAnd in a manic yellow hat, the old ladyAnd the old man, dead in his bedAnd their daughter, the saint:Her dark, religious hair gets tangled in the branchesShe is screaming, grabbingWhile the nurses play Mozart in another roomWhile the bats fly over the roofSnatch the black notes from the blacknessLaughingYou cryI am going to dieI can see them through this windowTheir little black capesThe touching ugliness of their little faces”