How weird was it that so many bits and pieces, all diverse, could make something whole. Something with potential. 'Perfect.

If there was a way to recognize something you'd never seen but still knew by heart, I felt it as I looked at his face. Finally, someone understood.

You need demarcation." "Demarcation?" I asked. "It means a clear separation between two things," he told me. "A solid end before a clean beginning. No murky borders. Clarity.

At every wedding someone stays home.

The lizard stared up at us, and we stared back, taking each other in. He was little and defenseless, I felt sorry for him already. This was a screwed-up place he'd just come into. But he didn't have to know that. Not yet, anyway. There in that room, where it was hot and cramped, the world probably still seemed small enough to manage.

She stroked my hair and told me I was beautiful, but I was old enough by then to know not to believe it anymore.

There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.