I have never lied, “ Mr. Barris counters, standing as well. “I do not share what I am not at liberty to say. I gave my word and I intend to keep it but I have never lied to you. You never even asked me, you assumed I knew nothing.

I draft quickly and then revise, a lot.

You send me all these roses. Every time I think the last bouquet has arrived, finally, another turns up. I’m running out of vases. I didn’t know roses came in so many colors. You say they’re the perfect symbols of love because they have thorns and love is pain. I say life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something. And you don’t get it. You say you love me, but you don’t speak my language. You don’t even realize I’m an orchid girl.

...have a theory that she is in love with the dream of someone and not an actual person.

All empires fall eventually. It is the way of things.

Something about the circus stirs their souls, and they ache for it when it is absent.

Once they were librarians, but that is a subject they will only discuss if heavily intoxicated.