Forgiveness lives alone and far off down the road, but bitterness and art are close, gossipy neighbors, sharing the same clothesline, hanging out their things, getting their laundry confused.

They had, finally, the only thing anyone really wants in life: someone to hold your hand when you die.

I've accrued a kind of patience, I believe, loosely like change.

Things between us were dissolving like an ice cub in a glass: the smaller it got, the faster it disappeared.

One had to build shelters. One had to make pockets and live inside them.

Plots are for dead people.

This lunge at moral fastidiousness was something she'd noticed a lot in people around here. They were not good people. They were not kind. But they recycled their newspapers!