But even in the schoolyard I'd been aware of that silence, that reserve in him, as though he'd been raised by foxes and language was his second language.

Shall I add a man to my collection?

Here in Raine, I can walk with the sunlight on my face. I can speak to anyone who speaks to me. I can learn my daughter's language. I can be called the name I was given when I was born. Here I am no longer my own secret. Will you let me stay?

All I wanted, even when I hated you most, was some poor, barren, parched excuse to love you. But you only gave me riddles.

What do you think love is - a thing to startle from the heart like a bird at every shout or blow? You can fly from me, high as you choose into your darkness, but you will see me always beneath you, no matter how far away, with my face turned to you. My heart is in your heart. I gave it to you with my name that night and you are its guardian, to treasure it, or let it whither and die. I do not understand you. I am angry with you. I am hurt and helpless, but nothing will fill the ache of the hollowness in me where your name would echo if I lost you.

Those who fear the imagination condemn it: something childish, they say, something monsterish, misbegotten. Not all of us dream awake. But those of us who do have no choice.

Imagination is the golden-eyed monster that never sleeps. It must be fed; it cannot be ignored.