“Oh, and last week? I changed into a tiger and scared Tommy Bertram so bad he wet his pants.Wait’ll he sees my dragon.”

“Okay,” I say at last. “But you have to teach me how to do animals. I can’t keep myself from wilting when I’m a plant, so I’ve been afraid to try a living form.”She laughs and shifts into the shape of a large golden retriever and almost licks me to death before I can make her stop.”

“Every time we start thinking we're the center of the universe, the universe turns around and says with a slightly distracted air, 'I'm sorry. What'd you say your name was again?”

“A woman’s body doesn’t quit just because her heart breaks.”

“The last day i was home i took the rental car up old 14 behind the Sandia Mountains. as i drove north toward Santa Fe past Madrid I rolled the window down halfway and let the cold, brisk, February air come into the car. I smelled the pinon trees and the damp earth. The Gray came over me. My life flashed through my heart in one deep rush of feeling. When I made the turn around the mountain to the west, the mesas and valleys spread out before me under the orange and gold horizon. The sun hit me like a wave that flooded out the past and dissolved any idea of the future, and I felt okay and whole for about twenty minutes.”

“When you actually meet the devil and he offers you a deal most artists eventually negotiate.”

“Have you ever had one of those moments when you look up and realize that you're one of those people you see on the train talking to themselves?”