“In the hurtling pronghorn, the vanished predators have left behind a heartrending spectacle. Through the smoking displays of wild abandon runs a desperate spirit, resigned to racing pickup trucks in its eternal longing for cheetahs.”

“One never sleepwalks through grizzlyland, dreaming of other places to be.”

“In conquering the fearsome beasts, the conquerors had unwittingly orphaned themselves.”

“It rained; then it snowed, and the snow stayed on the paved ground for long enough to become evenly blacked with soot and smoke-fall, evenly but for islands of yellow left by uptown dogs. Then it rained again, and the whole creation was transformed into cold slop, which made walking adventuresome. Then it froze; and every corner presented opportunity for entertainment, the vastly amusing spectacle of well-dressed people suspended in the indecorous positions which precede skull fractures.”

“Marriage is long enough to have plenty of room for time behind it.”

“Dignity was the first quality to be abandoned when the heart took over the running of human affairs.”

“She knows, now, absolutely, hearing the white noise that is London, that Damien's theory of jet lag is correct: that her mortal soul is leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands of feet above the Atlantic. Souls can't move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.”