“I try to cry, and can't, but even with dry eyes it's all so confusing.”

“You can't eat [literature], that's the problem," he said. "I've tried, it's very dry, and not at all nutritious.”

“And so an awful confusion begins to collect, forming a cloud that sits around an absence of hope. Desperate sensations. Can't breath. Panic. Just trying to catch my breath, but I can't breath. I hurt so much, and I'm so tired that I don't even want to breath the breath I'm gasping for. There is no more. This is the most. It's just pain, channeled in one direction, using you as its host.”

“And so a pattern develops: wake, work cry. sleep. I can't even escape him in my dreams. Gray burning eyes, his lost look, his hair burnished and bright and bright all haunt me. And the music... so much music-I cannot bear to hear any music. I am careful to avoid it at all costs. Even the jingles in commercials make me shudder.”

“Maybe that was why she couldn't cry, she realized, staring dry-eyed at the ceiling. Because what was the point in crying when there was no one there to comfort you? And what was worse, when you couldn't even comfort yourself?”

“Love." She looked at me with those blue eyes. "Isn't it astonishing how confused and complicated such a small,simple word is? It attracts so many other things, doesn't it, that stick to it like barnacles on rock...fear, guilt. Need. You can't even see the rock anymore. I imagine love in its purest form is a rare thing.”