"Sitting opposite Annie, Mira now wondered if this was also true of herself and Annie, that sometimes a person is meant to move forward in the world with the one they love at a distance, and that the distance is there to make it more beautiful. 

To find the right distance from everything in life is the most important thing. To stand at the right distance, like God standing back from the canvas for you can't see anything if you're too up close, and you can't see anything if you're too far back. 

So that is how she sat with Annie, there in the chocolate shop, across from her at the table. From across the table, Annie had managed to pull Mira back into life-back into this human life."

Oh Angels

"Water torture would be: never feeling her desire again"

"All relationships are reduced to mascara on a pillow"

Tunnel Carefully

 "“Paul,” she said

after a few seconds, and touched his upper arm, as if to offer

a way back, through her, to some prior intimacy, from where

they could tunnel carefully elsewhere, or to the same place,

but with a kind of skill this time, having practiced once. Paul

remained still, unsure what to say or think. Michelle lowered

her hand to her side. “What are you doing?” she said, somewhat

defensively"

Consider Myself Invalid

""

And I Want To

“And I know you can’t save me, you didn’t create the universe in seven days 


you’re just another person who isn’t in love with me
 

but maybe you can do something still, I guess, 

and I want to murder you and myself”

Unforgiving

“Since it is the smartest decision never to see you again, we are sure to cross paths in no time at all. The world is too small and unforgiving to let the heart surrender so easily.”

Just Cannot Love Me

"You told me once that you would break my heart.

I asked you not to be such a goddamn cliché, 
but then you left me because part of you was still broken. 
You say some man pried open the cracks of you, 
dug holes where once there were none, 
so now you just cannot love me how I deserve, 
therein lies the problem: you can you can you can."

Egregious

""

What Else To Do

"I want to be in the same space as you 

so I know that you are still with me, 

even if it's in the most basic, literal sense. 

I want to hold tight to your hand, 

even if you're trying to pull it away. 

Because I don't know what else to do."

There Is An Empty Space In My Heart

"you get so alone at times that it just makes sense"

 "you are a different human being to every person you meet"

Tremendous

"I felt what he felt, it was staggering, tremendous."

"We hadn't actually spoken since I gave him my blessing; I guessed he was busy doing all the things I was pretending he was. The thought gave me a sad ache, and even this ache was arousing."

Down The Line

"It was a small thing, but it was a thing, 
and things have a way of either dying or growing, 
and it wasn't dying."

God Knows How Goddamn Hard I Am Working

""

Invisible Monster

"I'm an invisible monster and I am incapable of loving anybody"

Rendering Them Both Irrelevant

"

"

As If Stressing the Unexpected Discovery

"Erin said she felt better than when she'd been paranoid, 

but seemed reluctant to reciprocate Paul's enthusiasm when, 

with child-like sensation of wanting to be encouraged to believe a fantasy, 

or that an aberration was the norm, 

he said, for the third time since getting on the plane, 

as if stressing the unexpected discovery of something worth living for, 

in an existence in which most things were endured, not enjoyed."

Exactly Decided Upon

“The transparency and total effort, with none spent on explanation or concealment or experimentation, of what the universe desired—to hug itself as carefully, as violently and patiently, as had been exactly decided upoint, at some point, with gravity was [something].”

Indispensable

“What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction.”

On A Different Planet

"Paul dreamed something about his cube-shaped room being a storage facility in which he'd been placed by an entity that believed in his resale value. While in storage he could interact with others, look at the internet, go on a book tour, but if he damaged himself he would be moved to a garbage pile."