…a cheerful black shadow reared up behind him as he spoke, thundering a happy challenge to my Dark Passenger, which slid forward and bellowed back.

Our universe is ruled by random whim, inhabited by people who laugh at logic.

And so as much as I can, I care about her, dear Deborah. It's probably not love, but I would rather she were happy.

I did not like this feeling of having feelings.

A man can take only so much. Even a phony man like me.

Weren't we all crazy in our sleep? What was sleep, after all, but the process by which we dumped our insanity into a dark subconscious pit and came out on the other side ready to eat cereal instead of our neighbor's children?

I had killed our careful relationship by driving my tongue through its heart and pushing it off a cliff.