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But you must hear them the same way we have agreed to see scars now. Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this storyteller is alive.

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This was always my trouble when I was learning to speak your language. Every word can defend itself. Just when you go to grab it, it can split into two separate meanings so the understanding closes on empty air.

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She was whispering into it in some language that sounded like butterflies drowning in honey.

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Whenever I need to stop and remind myself how much I once loved Andrew, I only need to think about this. That the ocean covers seven tenths of the earth’s surface, and yet my husband could make me not notice it.

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It was the month of May and there was warm sunshine dripping through the holes between the clouds, like the sky was a broken blue bowl and a child was trying to keep honey in it.

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That is the trouble with happiness – all of it is build on top of something that men want.

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Because this is the thing with lovers. It isn’t like being married. To remain in the game, one has to be considerate. One has to acknowledge a certain right-to-life of the other.

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Andrew grinning at me, unhesitantingly, and saying, Fancy buying a former colleague a spot of dinner? It was one in a billion. It was like catching lightening in a bottle.

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Perhaps at twenty, one is naturally curious about life but at thirty, simply suspicious of anyone who has one.

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A dog must be a dog and a wolf must be a wolf.

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But when twilight comes – do you see? – our world disappears. It cannot see beyond the day, because you have taken tomorrow. And becuase you have tomorrow in front of your eyes, you cannot see what is being done today.

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‘In my world death will come chasing. In your world it will start whispering in your ear to destroy yourself.”

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If your face is swollen from the severe beatings of your life, smile and pretend to be a fat man.

-Nigerian proverb

As the tide washed in, the Dutch Tulip Man faced the ocean:

“Conjoiner rejoinder poisoner concealer revelator. Look at it,

rising up and rising down, taking everything with it.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Water,” the Dutchman siad. “Well, and time.”

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Author’s Note

This is not so much an author’snote as an author’s reminder of what was printed in small type a few pages ago: This book is a work of fiction. I made it up.

Neither novels nor their readers benefit from attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idae that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species.

I appreciate your cooperation in this manner.

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Depression is a side effect of dying.

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It occured to me why they call it eye contact.

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“Because you’re beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence.”

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… the spring air just on the cold side of perfect, the late afternoon light heavenly in its hurftulness.

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“I take quite a lot of pride in not knowing what’s cool,”

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just choosing among truths

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“Pain demands to be felt,”

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“I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasures of saying true things.”

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“That’s what I believe. I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary?”

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