“We both knew that what I said was the truth, as well as being a lie. The pure and honest answer was pinging between us, hovering above the weeds.”

“No bird in a cage ever speaks. What is there to say? The sky is everywhere, churning above its head, blue and endless, calling out to it. But the caged bird can't answer anything except 'I cannot'.”

“I thought about how stupid it is, that all of us are born destined to desire somebody else, though desire brings with it such disappointment and pain. Humankind's history must be scored bloody with heartbreak. This hankering for affection is a blight upon us.”

“I want my life to be mystifying," she declared, although she didn't know what she meant.”

“I suppose that's what happens when you make other people's lives miserable: life gets miserable back at you.”

“Just a few more minutes here, I suggest: life hates to leave, worried what it might miss. But Vernon, closer, is shaking his head. This is all.”

“And she's striken with sudden nostalgia for the life she's been so eager to pack away, she wishes there was some way of being everything at once–grown and sure and clever, young and protected and new.”