Watching him during the first several minutes of his delivery, Cecilia felt a pleasant sinking sensation in her stomach as she contemplated how deliciously self-destructive it would be, almost erotic, to be married to a man so nearly handsome, so hugely rich, so unfathomably stupid. He would fill her with his big-faced children, all of them loud, boneheaded boys with a passion for guns and football and aeroplanes.

He never believed in fate or providence, or the future being made by someone in the sky. Instead, at every instant, a trillion trillion possible futures; the pickiness of pure chance and physical laws seemed like freedom from the scheming of a gloomy god.

Screenwriting is an opportunity to fly first class, be treated like a celebrity, sit around the pool and be betrayed.

He was looking at her with amused suspicion. There was something between them, and even she had to acknowledge that a tame remark about the weather sounded perverse.

A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.

i'm going mad, i told myself. let me not be mad.

You can tell a lot from a person's nails. When a life starts to unravel, they're among the first to go.