Once a guy starts using a wig, he has to keep using one. It's, like, his fate. That's why wig makers make such huge profits. I hate to say it, but they're like drug dealers.

As with marathon runs and lengths of toilet paper, there had to be standards to measure up to.

And it was the kind of thing that loses the most important nuances when reduced to words. He had never told anyone about it, and he probably never would.

Tell me, Doctor, are you afraid of death?" "I guess it depends on how you die.

No matter how clear things might become in the forest of story, there was never a clear-cut solution, as there was in math. The role of a story was, in the broadest terms, to transpose a problem into another form. Depending on the nature and the direction of the problem, a solution might be suggested in the narrative. Tengo would return to the real world with that solution in hand. It was like a piece of paper bearing the indecipherable text of a magic spell. It served no immediate practical purpose, but it contained a possibility.

Probably." "Again with the probablys." "A world full of probablys," she said.

My arm was not what she needed, but the arm of someone else. My warmth was not what she needed, but the warmth of someone else.