She was becoming sad. There is no joy involved in following others' expectations of yourself

David Bergen is a master of taut, spare prose that's both erotic and hypnotic. . . .

I wondered if it was possible to donate my body to science before I was actually dead. I wondered if a disease were to be named after me what the symptoms would be.

Conversing with children is a fine art.... An art form that demands large amounts of both honesty and misdirection. Or maybe discretion is a better word.

But love, like a mushroom high compared with the buzz from cheap weed, outlasts grief.

Things shouldn't hinge on so very little. Sneeze and you're highway carnage. Remove one tiny stone and you're an avalanche statistic. But I guess if you can die without ever understanding how it happened then you can also live without a complete understanding of how. And in a way that's kind of relaxing.

Life being what it is, one dreams not of revenge. One just dreams.