“I barely noticed loneliness anymore; it was my normal condition, by necessity if not by nature.”

“I was half lawyer; I always noticed the loopholes.”

“I felt lighter when I had finished, and for once emptiness was a sweet relief and a condition to be treasured.”

“There are two sacred causes in this world,” he said, holding up his pinkie and ring ringer. “Chance and necessity. By chance I was there to help when you had need.”

“I heard you, sought you, and have found you. I have reached for you, across space and sense and the laws of nature. I do not know how.”

“Metaphor is awkward, but emotion, by its nature, leaves you no more scalable approach.”

“He did not know the truth of me, yet he had perceived something true about me that no one else had ever noticed. And in spite of that—or perhaps because of it—he believed me good, believed me worth taking seriously, and his belief, for one vertigi-nous moment, made me want to be better than I was.”