“We love each other, that’s true whatever it means, but we aren’t good at it; for some it’s a talent, for others only an addiction.”

“I was nervous. How was I to know he loved me? It might be just an affair. Why did we ever say just? Though at that time men and women tried each other on, casually, like suits, rejecting whatever did not fit.”

“We are survivors, of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something.”

“Stick a shovel into the ground almost anywhere and some horrible thing or other will come to light. Good for trade, we thrive on bones; without them there'd be no stories.”

“Though at that time men and women tried each other on, casually, like suits, rejecting whatever did not fit.”

“What we share may be a lot like a traffic accident but we get one another. We are survivors of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something.”

“Where was the threshold, between the inner world and the outer one? We each move unthinkingly through this gateway every day, we use the passwords of grammar--I say, you say, he and she, it, on the other hand, does not say--paying for the privilege of sanity with common coin, with meanings we've agreed on.”