“If we couldn't see anything outside the car, if we didn't know we were moving, there would be no way of telling whether it was the raindrops' fault or our own.”

“We drove around for half an hour in search of two free parking spaces because you couldn't get into a single one," he said, to banish those thoughts. "It was just an excuse to keep you with me," Alice replied. "But you never understood anything.”

“In the end it happens, in some way you couldn't imagine before.”

“Do you really like studying?"Mattia nodded."Why?""It's the only thing I know how to do," he said shortly. He wanted to tell her that he liked studying because you can do it alone, because all the things you study are already dead, cold, and chewed over. He wanted to tell her that the pages of the schoolbooks were all the same temperature, that they left you time to choose, that they never hurt you and you couldn't hurt them either. But he said nothing.”

“She was sleeping a sleep that wasn't her own and the gadgets to which she was connected didn't make a sound.”

“Mattia thought there was nothing good about having his mind. That he would happily have unscrewed it and replaced it with a different one, or even with a package of biscotti, provided it was empty and light. He opened his mouth to reply that feeling special is the worst kind of cage that a person can build for himself, but he didn't say anything.”

“In fact, they didn't talk much at all, but they spent time together, each in his own abyss, held safe and tight by the other's silence.”