“She was like a candle that just went out. All the circles that made her up suddenly got lopsided and warped.”

“I bent over her and kissed her lips. She embraced me, and we remained like that as the light from the candle sputtered then went out.”

“If you think of the world without people it's about the most perfect thing there ever is. It's all balanced and shit. But then come the people, and they fuck it up. It's like you got Aretha Franklin in your bedroom and she's just giving it her all, she's singing just for you, she's on fire...and then all of a sudden out pops Barry Manilow from behind the curtains.”

“How a mother comes to love her child, her caring at all for this thing that's made her heavy, lopsided and slow, this thing that made her wish she were dead ... that's the miracle.”

“And the candle by the light of which she had been reading that book filled with anxieties, deceptions, grief and evil, flared up brighter than ever, lit up for her all that had once been darkness, sputtered, grew dim and went out for ever.”

“Just like a damned man, he thought exasperatedly. She got what she wanted, then curled up and went to sleep.That was what he was supposed to do, blast and confound her bloody impudence.”