“Quentin’s conversations with his parents were so circular and self-defeating, they sounded like experimental theater.”

“She kept public radio on so it sounded like someone was sitting next to her, engaging her in intriguing conversation.”

“Strange, when one thinks of all the other boys, infinite experimental kisses, test tube infatuations, crushes, pseudo-loves.All through this physical separation, through the testing and the trying of the others, there has been this peculiar rapport, comradeship, of us two so alike, so similar, but for science-boy and humanities-girl - the introspection, self examination, biannual deep summarizing conversations, and then the platonic parting.”

“In the fifty years my parents were married, in the thousands of conversations my dad had with me, it had just never come up. And so there I was, weeks after his death, getting another lesson from him about the meaning of sacrifice—and about the power of humility”

“It was like his entire body was having a conversation with Justin's body, though they were barely touching.”

“Gnostic politics is self-defeating in so far as its disregard for the structure of reality leads to continuous warfare.”