“The morphlings from District 6 are in the camouflage station, painting each other's faces with bright pink swirls.”

“Her face was fragile and mischievous, pale enough to absorb hues from the world around her-purple, green, pink-like a face painted by Lucian Freud.”

“On Saturday afternoons I used to go for a walk with my mother. From the dusk of the hallway, we stepped at once into the brightness of the day. The passerby, bathed in melting gold, had their eyes half-closed against the glare, as if they were drenched with honey, upper lips were drawn back, exposing the teeth. Everyone in this golden day wore that grimace of heat–as if the sun had forced his worshippers to wear identical masks of gold. The old and the young, women and children, greeted each other with these masks, painted on their faces with thick gold paint; they smiled at each other's pagan faces–the barbaric smiles of Bacchus.”

“Wrapped around each other but now clad in a pink nightie and a pair of sweatpants. To be clear, I wore the pink nightie.”

“Sunrise paints the sky with pinks and the sunset with peaches. Cool to warm. So is the progression from childhood to old age.”

“He was discomfited to see how easily men (and women as well) stepped from the train to station platform, from platform to train – with ease, with levity, laughing and talking and greeting each other as though oblivious to the abrupt geographical shifts they were making, and disrespectful of the distance and differences they entered. Many were hatless, their clothes brightly colored. The cases they carried appeared, from the way they handled them, to be feather-light.”