She was fluent in four languages and yet her fists against the rusted hood were the fullest articulation of her defeat.

Nothing, she now knew, could be defined in exclusion, and every bug, pencil, and grass blade was a dictionary in itself, requiring the definitions of all things to fulfill its own.

She praised his book and he embraced her from gratitude rather than lust, but she didn't let go. Neither did he. She kissed his cheek, his earlobe. For months they'd run their fingers around the hem of their affection without once acknowledging the fabric. The circumference of the world tightened to what their arms encompassed. She sat on the desk, between the columns of read and unread manuscript, and pulled him toward her by his index fingers.

Inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce, and that is who we are.

How often is immense sadness mistaken for courage?

War is unnatural, it causes people to act unnaturally.

Work isn't meaningful just because you spend your life doing it.