Rapture cults had packed their suitcases and were massing together in great vigils, waiting for the end. "All bogus," she'd told Zuzana. "Just a bunch of crackpots waiting for the Apocalypse." "Because, fun, right?" Zuzana rubbed her hands together in mock glee. "Oh, boy. The Apocalypse!" "Right? I know. How much does your life have to suck to want the Apocalypse?

In all that was to happen, there would be that feeling of inevitability and rightness, and the sense that the universe was conspiring in it. It would be easy.

What does true even mean when it comes to a face? Only souls are true, and when you spill them to the air they melt away.

Love affair. Doesn't that sound so middle-aged? And also ill-fated. Like ill-fated is an understood prefix to love affair. Well, ill-fated is fine, as long as it's a meaty and fraught ill-fated love affair, not a pale and insipid one.

As long as you're alive, there's always a chance things will get better.

And they were quiet but their blood and nerves and butterflies were not—they were rampantly alive, rushing and thrumming in a wild and perfect melody, matched note for note.

It was interesting the way a small hate could grow inside a big hate and take it over.