..this indiscriminate love feels entirely serious to her, as if everything in the world is part of a vast, inscrutable intention and everything in the world has its own secret name, a name that cannot be conveyed in language but is simply the sight and feel of the thing itself.

The secret of flight is this -- you have to do it immediately, before your body realizes it is defying the laws.

This is what you do. You make a future for yourself out of the raw material at hand.

A stray fact: insects are not drawn to candle flames, they are drawn to the light on the far side of the flame, they go into the flame and sizzle to nothingness because they're so eager to get to the light on the other side.

She is, above all else, tired; she wants more than anything to return to her bed and her book. The world, this world, feels suddenly stunned and stunted, far from everything.

You can't find peace by avoiding life.

Yes," she answers and does not move. She might, at this moment, be nothing but a floating intelligence; not even a brain inside a skull, just a presence that perceives, as a ghoast might. Yes, she thinks, this is probably how it must feel to be a ghost. It's a little like reading, isn't it-that same sensation of knowing people, settings, situations, without playing any particular part beyond that of the willing observer.