“How, after all, are we so sure there aren't invisible civilizations floating by on every mote?”

“Sifting daylight dissolves the memory, turns it into dust motes floating in light.”

“Sometimes she sat and let her mind go blank and her eyes go out of focus, so that she watched the slow, jerky movements of the motes that floated across her pupils. They amazed her as a child. Now she saw them as a reflection of how she moved, floating listlessly through the world, occasionally bumping into another body without acknowledgment, and then floating on, free and alone.”

“No, we aren't civilized, even in our business suits and high heels. People are as mean as ever, and as predictable. Underneath it all, we are not so different from what lurks in the wild, perhaps we're worse.”

“We girls aren't supposed to fall for the good boys.We are supposed to like a bit of grit in our oyster.That's how you get a pearl, after all.”

“Civilization, after all, is defined by what we forbid, more than what we permit.”