It is all about numbers. It is all about sequence. It's the mathematical logic of being alive. If everything kept to its normal progression, we would live with the sadness-cry and then walk-but what really breaks us cleanest are the losses that happen out of order.

I don't think so, I don't agree. The most unbearable thing I think by far, she said, is hope.

I am the drying meadow; you the unspoken apology; he is the fluctuating distance between mother and son; she is the first gesture that creates a quiet that is full enough to make the baby sleep. My genes, my love, are rubber bands and rope; make yourself a structure you can live inside. Amen.

Language is the ticket to plot and character, after all, because both are built out of language.

…kissing George was a little like rolling in caramel after spending years surviving off rice sticks.

We hit the sidewalk, and dropped hands. How I wished, right then, that the whole world was a street.

My genes, my love, are rubber bands and rope; make yourself a structure you can live inside. Amen." — Aimee Bender (Willful Creatures: Stories)