“Their lives spun off the tilting world like thread off a spindle, breakfast time, suppertime, lilac time, apple time.”

“And so I told myself to take that one. Because Father said clocks slay time. He said time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life. The hands were extended, slightly off the horizontal at a faint angle, like a gull tilting into the wind.”

“For the first time in twenty-two years after the jaw tilt, Feb didn’t take her eyes off him. And for the first time in twenty-two years, he gave her a smile.”

“Almost like being in the nightmare, that same feverish blur of the world slipping off its axis, but this time he was the one in control, this time he was the nightmare.”

“So this is how they lived. For some time Theo, like a tree living in the shadow of taller trees, found a way to live off reflected light.”

“Every time you decide, you kill off infinite lives that could've lived.”