“Often he vanished for days down the spiral staircase into the engine-room to overhaul the weary machinery, leaving me with a curt note tacked to his then-favourite aspen, the Aspen Laura-Anne, a white-limbed thing with noisy leaves: 'A due-south drift, please, love, for a day or two, n'est-ce pas?”

“Finally when he climbed below deck after dark, wondering where his dinner was, perhaps with a storm come up and rough seas and blinding rains, I'd sulk and lure him into the warm and steamy darkness and from the hairs of his warm body I'd breed a myriad smiling, sparkle-eyed one-year-olds, my broods, my flocks. In the churning seas, below the waves, together inside our hammock woven in coarse sailcloth by Unguentine's deft hands, a spherical webbed sack which hung and swivelled between the two walls of our bedroom, we would spin round and round with lapping tongues and the soft suction of lips, whirling, our amorous centrifuge, all night long, zipped inside against the elements. Now, years and years later, those nights, the thought and touch of them is enough to make me throw myself down on the ground and roll in the dust like a hen nibbled by mites, generating clouds, stars and all the rest.”

“To dream a garden and then to plant it is an act of independence and even defiance to the greater world.”

“I must be very complex, judging by the number of days determined to define me.”

“The main floor of Penn Station, early,the first commuters arriving, leaving,the man outstretched on his coat,wide circles of survivors forming.He's half in, half out of his clothes,being kissed and cardio-shocked,though he was likely dead before he landed.This goes on for minutes, minutes more,until the medics unhook the vanished heart,move him onto the cot and cover himwith the snow-depth of a sheetand wheel him the fluorescent lengthof the hall through gray freight doorsthat open on their own and close at will.”

“I teach my sons that there are really only three rules to being a good man. The first rule is to fish often. And by fish, I mean find the quiet times to fish around in your minds for what is most important. The second rule is to protect everyone smaller than them. This means physically smaller, and in all other ways... protect the more vulnerable. The third rule states that if something is truly important to you, then you should prove it. You say you would lay your life down for someone, but will you give them the busiest five minutes of your day, if they need it?”

“EJ cries, "We've been best friends since kindergarten. You can't become a babe slayer and leave me in the dust! I don't have an older sister. I'm disadvantaged. All I got is Emmy, who can only drop preschool wisdom like, 'No pull Barbie's hair!'" "That's probably some early girl wisdom. Nobody likes to get their hair pulled," I say. "Except this one chick in my porno; I think she's into it. I cant really tell, though. I wish they would slow down.”