“Centuries old, but recently widened, the highway was the same road used by pagan armies, pilgrims, peasants, donkey carts, nomads, wild horsemen out of the east, artillery, tanks, and ten-ton trucks. Its traffic gushed or trickled or dripped, according to the age and season. Once before, long ago, there had been six lanes and robot traffic. Then the traffic had stopped, the paving had cracked, and sparse grass grew in the cracks after an occasional rain. Dust had covered it. Desert dwellers had dug up its broken concrete for the building of hovels and barricades. Erosion made it a desert trail, crossing wilderness. But now there were six lanes and robot traffic, as before.”

“This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.”

“Already a sizable traffic jam blocked the Bund. Once again the crush and clutter of Shanghai had engulfed its invaders.”

“Under the bridge, traffic above us and coats around us, hearts thudding with the steady perfection of this moment, I thought of every word I had never before dared to think about him.Future. Hope.And love, as the rain slowed to a misty trickle through the long and beautiful night.”

“Best to let the broken glass be broken glass, let it splinter into smaller pieces and dust and scatter. Let the cracks between things widen until they are no longer cracks but the new places for things. That was where they were now. The world wasn't ending: it had ended and now they were in the new place. They could not recognize it because they had never seen it before.”

“Ahead of them lay an expressway access road. Except that there were no guardrails or markings. No road signs either. And no other vehicles at all. Yet the road, following a narrow curve, led to a broad ribbon of asphalt tracing a straight line all the way to the horizon. Again, it had no lines painted on it and there were no signs. Rosa thought there would have been space for four traffic lanes on it, but it was covered with the dust and loose soil that had blown over it.No other sign of life. Just the two of them, the car, and a forgotten road to nowhere.“Where does it go?”“To the end of the world.”