I think he's beginning to understand, and understanding is a horrible thing.

She would do anything, anything to belong to his son after a lifetime of belonging to no one at all.

I want to make a world more magical than my own. I don't care if it makes sense, I don't care if it's ridiculed or if, rather than a neat round planet that goes around forever, it ends with a cliff that falls off into nothing. I want to have my eyes wide open, and I want to see this room and at the same time, not this room.

So how long do you think it’ll be?” he says. “Before the next hurricane comes along to take you home.” “Can I tell you my biggest fear?” I say. “Yes. Tell me.” “That it will be a very windless four years.

His three wives are huddled together on the bare mattress, one of them dying; when we're together, we form an alliance he can't touch. He's scared to even try.

He looks at me, and I don't know what he sees. I used to think it was Rose. But she's not here with us now, in this room. It's just him and me, and the books. I feel like our lives are in those books. I feel like all the words on the pages are for us.

She has the majesty of hurricanes and explosions.