“The world is full of love stories, and all lovers are in a sense the avatars of their predecessors.”

“Each affects the other, and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.”

“that each affects the other and tho other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.”

“People wanted the world to be a story, because stories had to sound right and they had to make sense. People wanted the world to make sense.”

“They'd never been lovers, of course, not in the physical sense. But they'd been lovers as most of us manage, loving through expressions and gestures and the palm set softly upon the bruise at the necessary moment. Lovers by inclination rather than by lust. Lovers, that is, by love.”

“...these stories are a kind of beacon. By making stories full of empathy and amusement and the sheer pleasure of discovering the world, these writers reassert the fact that we live in a world where joy and empathy and pleasure are all around us, there for the noticing.”