…she smiles in an exhausted but warm sort of way, as though she is a brilliant sun in some other galaxy

that's what I love you for: your inability to perceive all my hideous flaws

In the dim light of the computer screen he seemed otherworldly; Julia thought him beautiful, though she knew it was the beauty of damage.

He was not in the house. He did not come back that night. Days went by, and at last she understood that he would not return at all.

Why do you have a cigarette lighter in your glove compartment?" her husband, Jack, asked her. "I'm bored with knitting. I've taken up arson

Maybe I'm dreaming you. Maybe you're dreaming me; maybe we only exist in each other's dreams and every morning when we wake up we forget all about each other.

Our love has been the thread through the labyrinth, the net under the high-wire walker, the only real thing in this strange life of mine that I could ever trust.