“It is a dull sensation, your heart breaking, like the sound of a pebble dropping on the sand. Not a shattering, not a tearing apart, there is nothing shrill or grandiose about the sensation. It is merely an internal realization that something treasured you never knew you had is leaving forever.”

“But I knew deep down that the stuff behind could not just be dropped like it had nothing to do with what was ahead...There was just too much, too many strange angles and things left jaggedy open so you did not know they would ever shut right.”

“When I heard the apartment door open everything felt lethargic, like we were moving underwater, struggling slowly against the weight. The sitting room door opened and Braden walked in, his face so pale and eyes so glazed, that I knew before I even looked at tear-streaked Ellie. I knew what fear felt like when it was pulsing from a person, I knew how grief could thicken the air, how it could slam into your chest and cause pain through your whole body. Your eyes, your head, your arms, your legs, even your gums.”

“Antoine knew what it was like to flee, to shed a life as though it were a cloak. He had learned to pack light. The less he had, the less he had to leave behind.”

“Never a right time, honey, I know. There never is when it comes to breaking someone's heart”

“Hearing the sound of your breathing as you sleep,with the dog at your feet, his head restingon a shoe, and the clock's tickinglike water dripping in a sink-- I know that, even if reincarnation were a fact,given the inherent cruelty of the worldwhere beautiful things and peopleare blasted apart all the day long,I would never want to come back, knowingI could never be this lucky twice...”

“But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day.”