Hinged to forgetfulness like a door, she slowly closed out of sight, and she was the woman I loved, but too many times she slept like a mechanical deer in my caresses, and I ached in the metal silence of her dreams.

There are seductions that should be in the Smithsonian Institute, right next to The Spirit of St. Louis.

Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee affords.

"I count a lot of things that there's no need to count," Cameron said. "Just because that's the way I am. But I count all the things that need to be counted."

because you always have a clock strapped to your body, it's natural that i should think of you as the correct time: with your long blonde hair at 8:03, and your pulse-lightning breasts at 11:17, and your rose-meow smile at 5:30, i know i'm right.

Like some kind of strange vacuum cleaner I tried to console him. I recited the same old litanies that you say to people when you try to help their broken hearts, but words can't help at all. It's just the sound of another human voice that makes the only difference. There's nothing you're ever going to say that's going to make anybody happy when they're feeling shitty about losing somebody that they love.

Excuse me, I said. I thought you were a trout stream. I'm not, she said.