“Before the mind snaps, or the heart breaks, it gather itself like a clock about to strike. It might even be said one pulls himself together to disintegrate.”

“I loathe the expression “What makes him tick.” It is the American mind, looking for simple and singular solutions, that uses the foolish expression. A person not only ticks, he also chimes and strikes the hour, falls and breaks and has to be put together again, and sometimes stops like an electric clock in a thunderstorm. ”

“He couldn’t remember talking to himself like an idiot before he moved in with Cole. Ellis snapped his hands away from his face. Epiphany strikes! “That’s it! Living with Cole has made me batty!”

“Or you'll be the next one to go up in smoke, said Simon.There is no need to clarify my finger snap, said Magnus. The implication was clear in the snap itself.”

“One can only walk so far from one's true self before the bond either snaps, or pulls one back.”

“His hands struck her any hour of the day, like hands that strike a clock, whether early, whether late; they strike, they strike.”