“She needed to recover. His father had died in January; it was only the end of May. They needed to stick to the routine they'd established during the intervening months. in that way, their life woul...”

“That was how it was, sometimes. You put yourself in front of the thing and waited for whatever was going to happen and that was all. It scared you and it didn't matter. You stood and faced it. Ther...”

“We'll know we've got it right when they choose for themselves," he used to say. That doesn't make sense. 'That's what I thought too. I asked him what he meant, but he just shrugged. I don't think h...”

“Life was a swarm of accidents waiting in the treetops, descending upon any living thing that passed, ready to eat them alive. You swam in a river of chance and coincidence. You clung to the happies...”

“Just when normal life felt almost possible - when the world held some kind of order, meaning, even loveliness (the prismatic spray of light through an icicle; the stillness of a sunrise), some smal...”

“AlmondineTo her, the scent and the memory of him were one. Where it lay strongest, the distant past came to her as if that morning: Taking a dead sparrow from her jaws, before she knew to hide such...”

“This was about more than semantics; it represented a dangerous shift in perspective.Rio was not at war, I pointed out; and even if it were, wars have rules.”

“Rules are for people with the luxury of time.”

“Rules are for those who can't think of a better way.”