Don’t you see?” I said. “He could change every detail, but he couldn’t change her.” “But why?” His obtuseness frustrated me. “Because he was in love with her!” I said. “Because, to him, she was the only thing that was real.

Forests, which I think do contain a lot mystery and traditionally are the setting for lawlessness and magic and what is outside of the rational to some degree, are still something more finite. I guess the desert and its crushing sense of infinite space is part of its connection to the mystical - on top of making you dehydrated and therefore primed for visions.

I walked down my snow covered street. Out of habit I turned and checked for my footsteps. When I arrived at my building I looked for my name on the buzzers. And because I know that sometimes I see things that aren't there, after dinner I called Information to ask if I was listed.(25)

When we went into the ocean, I watched his body as he dove into the waves, and it gave me a feeling in my stomach that wasn't an ache but something different.

I read like an animal. I read under the covers, I read lying in the grass, I read at the dinner table. While other people were talking to me, I read.

Loneliness: there is no organ that can take it all.

If the book is a mystery to its author as she's writing, inevitably it's going to be a mystery to the reader as he or she reads it.