“Sing me a pretty love song as I start to cryTell me you love me as you wipe the blood from my eyeTell me why the only one who can wipe away my tearsIs the only one who's the source of all my fears”

“America smiled at me and wiped my face. “You are such a pain in the ass, Abby. God, I love you!”

“I have only one friend, and that is echo. Why is it my friend? Because I love my sorrow, and echo does not take it away from me. I have only one confidant, and that is the silence of night. Why is it my confidant? Because it remains silent.”

“During the nuit blanche I think: Henry, my love, I can love you better now that you cannot hurt me. I can love you more gaily. More loosely. I can endure space and distance and betrayals. Only the best, the best and the strongest. Henry, my love, the wanderer, the artist, the faithless one who has loved me so well. Believe me, nothing has changed in me toward you except my courage. I cannot walk with one love ever. My head is strong, my head, but to walk, to walk into love I need miracles, the miracles of excess, and white heat, and two-ness! Lie here, breathing into my hair, over my neck. No hurt will come from me. No criticalness, no judgment. I bear you in my womb.”

“My friends, God is necessary for me if only because he is the one being who can be loved eternally.”

“Nursemaid, you mean? Someone who can sing me to sleep at bedtime, spoonporridge into my mouth, and wipe my”—he hesitated just long enough to make both servants cringe withdread—“chinif I dribble?”“I haven’t the voice for lullabies and I’m sure you’re perfectly capable of wiping your own…chin, ”