“George Burns tells a wonderful story about the one time in his life (so he says) he cheated on his beloved Gracie. He was so disgusted and ashamed of himself that he went out and bought her the most beautiful diamond necklace he could find. Gracie was pretty sure she knew what was wrong, but she accepted the necklace and said nothing. Several years passed. One night, she and George were out to dinner and an acquaintance complimented her on her lovely necklace. As George stood there, aghast, she replied, 'Thank you. I wish George would cheat on me again so I could get the matching earrings.”

“George stared at the dove. What would she say if she could speak to him? What would she wish for, for her father? For she, too, had been harmed by a man who had meant to show his utmost love for her.It made George wonder why love was suppose to be such a wonderful thing. As far as he could tell, love was just another excuse for causing pain.”

“No man as godly as George, the only fault he finds with God is that he made folk with too few orifices. If George could meet a woman with a quinny under her armpit, he would call out 'Glory be' and set her up in a house and visit her every day, until the novelty wore off. Nothing is forbidden to George, you see. He'd go to it with a terrier bitch if she wagged her tail at him and said bow-wow.'For once he is struck silent. He knows he will never get it out of his mind, the picture of George in a hairy grapple with a little ratting dog.”

“She was the most beautiful thing you ever saw. She was radiant. And she was wearing this necklace... When you see the necklace in the painting, it all makes sense. He loved her. Even if she lived to one hundred and five without ever getting an answer.”

“She liked his tears so much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it. Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies. ”

“She wanted George with some uncorrelated sector of Her Gart, she wanted George to correlate for her, life here, there. She wanted George to define and to make definable a mirage, a reflection of some lost incarnation, a wood maniac, a tree demon, a neuropathic dendrophile...She wanted George to make the thing an integral, herself integrity. She wanted George to make one of his drastic statements that would dynamite her world away for her. She wanted this, but even as she wanted it she let herself sink further, further, she saw that her two hands reached toward George like the hands of a drowned girl. She knew she was not drowned. Where others would drown-lost, suffocated in this element-she knew that she lived. She had no complete right yet to this element, hands struggled to be pulled out. White hands waved above the water like sea spume or inland-growing pond flowers...She wanted George to pull her out, she wanted George to push her in, let Her be drowned utterly.”