“We seek out other people to fight off the loneliness but it's like we're children playing at pretend. We are alone in everything we do, Livy. Alone but not without company.”

“Live as if they're going to tell stories about you.”

“It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact th...”

“Pretending is one of our greatest pleasures. But you have to know you're pretending.”

“There are many different stories to tell. It's never the same. Every day weather blows in and out, alters the surface. Sometimes it is stripped down to a single essential truth, the thing that is a...”

“I'm skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later...”

“All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.All of them?Sure, he says. Think about it. There's escaping from the wolves, fighting the wolves, cap...”

“I just stood there, like a grain of sand amongst amillion others on a beach.”