And feeling clever, I've always thought, is just a sigh away from being cheerful.

Oblivion seemed the only reasonable option.

I've always thought cruelty is a failure of imagination.

And she did not miss his presence so much as his voice on the phone. Even being lied to constantly, though hardly like love, was sustained attention; he must care about her to fabricate so elaborately and over such a long stretch of time. His deceit was a form of tribute to the importance of their marriage.

He had never before felt so self-consciously young, nor experienced such appetite, such impatience for the story to begin.

The cost of oblivius daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realigment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse. Her reverie, once rich in plausible details, had become a passing silliness before the hard mass of the actual. It was difficult to come back.

Dying in unfamiliar surroundings miles away from home, it cannot possibly be good. There is a great sadness about that I think.