“But mostly they were lies I told; it wasn't my fault, I couldn't remember, because it was as though I'd been to one of those supernatural castles visited by characters in legends: once away, you do not remember, all that is left is the ghostly echo of haunting wonder.”

“I left you clean. Purged of all your ghosts. I am the one who has been haunted all my life. Haunted by you.”

“Of course I remember. I remember my aching back and the drizzle, and the throb of my piercing in the top of my ear. I'd left university because of him. I'd learnt that I didn't want to be anywhere he wasn't, that I physically couldn't stand it. I was eighteen; he was in his early thirties. I came up the lane and found him standing there, under the limes, wearing blue.”

“At some point, our lips met and it was perhaps the most wonderful thing I'd ever experienced. And truly, I guess there wasn't just one kiss, but several. A polite frenzy. A mass migration of delicate wildebeest kisses. I remember them as one transcendent event, though.”

“someday no one will remember that she ever existed, i wrote in my notebook, and then, or that i did. because memories fall apart, too. and then you’re left with nothing, left not even with a ghost but with its shadow.”

“I shook my head. I couldn't remember the time before, or the way it used to be. There were things we used to do, factual things, and those were easy to recall--playing, biking, singing. As for the things we'd conjured and believed, those were harder to recapture. I wondered if ideals existed only because there was so much to be learned in the loss of them,”