We accept gods that don't speak to us. We accept gods that would place us in a world filled with injustices and do nothing as we struggle. It's easier than accepting that there's nothing out there at all, and that, in our darkest moments, we are truly alone.

On tiptoes the redhead wouldn't even reach my shoulders; she is clearly too young to be a bride. And the willowy girl is too forlorn. And I am too unwilling. Yet here we are.

Lovers are weapons, but love is a wound.

We are stronger than we've credited ourselves to be. We have been the victims and the witnesses. We have said a lifetime of good-byes.

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.

She has the majesty of hurricanes and explosions.

The sullen boy sitting before me is not my husband, and the girl he is fretting over isn't me, will never be me.