She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.

It's such a liability to love another person.

Don't turn over the rocks if you don't want to see the pale creatures who live under them.

What was the point in such loneliness among people. At least if you were by yourself, you had a good reason to be lonely.

How could anybody confuse truth with beauty, I thought as I looked at him. Truth came with sunken eyes, bony or scarred, decayed. Its teeth were bad, its hair gray and unkempt. While beauty was empty as a gourd, vain as a parakeet. But it had power. It smelled of musk and oranges and made you close your eyes in a prayer.

He reminded me of someone who put your fingers in the door and smiled and talked to you while he smashed them.

We parked in back and walked down the stairs with their polished brass railings, past the old-fashioned kitchen. We could see the chefs cooking. It smelled like stew, or meat loaf, the way time should smell, solid and nourishing.