All I ever wanted was a world without maps.

She had grown older. And he loved her more now than he had loved her when he understood her better, when she was the product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become.

I love the performance of a craft, whether it is modest or mean-spirited, yet I walk away when discussions of it begin - as if one should ask a gravedigger what brand of shovel he uses or whether he prefers to work at noon or in moonlight. I am interested only in the care taken, and those secret rehearsals behind it. Even if I do not understand fully what is taking place.

What night gave Rafael was a formlessness in which everything had a purpose. As if darkness had a hidden musical language.

Snap. Lady with dog. Lady on sofa half-naked. Snap. Naked lady. Lady next to dresser. Lady at window. Snap. Lady on balcony sunlight. (On New Orleans photographer E. J. Bellocq)

Nowadays he doesn't think of his wife, though he knows he can turn around and evoke every move of her, describe any aspect of her, the weigh of her wrist on his heart during the night.

Sleep is a prison for a boy who has friends to meet.