“She didn't recognize him and he didn't recognize her, because people and places change and what once was will never be again.”

“Who was she in high school? Little Miss Nobody. She could have embroidered it on her sweaters, tattooed it across her forehead. And in small letters: i am shit, i am anonymous, step on me. please. She wasn't voted Most Humorous in her high school yearbook or Best Dancer or Most Likely to Succeed, and she wasn't in the band or Spanish Club and when her ten year reunion rolled around nobody would recognize her or have a single memory to share.”

“The thought arrested her and she pulled away from him just to stand there a moment and take in the strangeness of it all. Music drifted down to her then, an odd tinkling sort of music with a rippling rhythmic undercurrent that seemed to tug the melody in another direction altogether, into the depths of a deep churning sea, but beautiful for all that, and so perfect and unexpected. She felt languid and free--all eyes were on her, every man turning to stare--and it came to her that she loved this place, this moment, these people. She could stay here forever, right here, in the gentle sway of the Japanese night.”

“Sometimes, when she's out here alone, she can feel the pulse of something bigger, as if all things animate were beating in unison, a glory and a connection that sweeps her out of herself, out of her consciousness, so that nothing has a name, not in Latin, not in English, not in any known language.”

“This was what he was born for. This was what made sense. The only thing.”

“I am concerned with social and environmental issues. What rational person is not? But advocacy and art do not mix. Art is a seduction. Good art invites the reader to think and feel deeply and come to his/her own conclusions.”

“Why ruin my sister's birthday simply because the entire planet was going to hell in a hand basket?”