Could two people stay in love, when one had injured the other in such a permanent and visible way?

Nobody trusts a writer, but they will generally talk themselves into cooperating if you let them.

Maître Susane knew she didn’t need Sharon’s energy, youth, or abilities, she knew full well that those virtues were wasted in her apartment, where there was literally nothing to do.

He felt as though the psychologist had uncovered a secret about him and was waiting until this day to tell him.

 Life without God’s love is like a donut, ’cause there’s a hole in the middle of your heart!

I swam fast toward the rocks—the sting of a jellyfish couldn’t be worse than listening to him go on about his mother.’

It was embarrassing that a Gus Van Sant film featured a character whose psychological profile wasn’t that far from Julius’s own.

Nothing is more flattering to an artist than the illusion that he is a secret revolutionary. 

On and off, from the slit in my blinds, I observed him, some other dude, and a lady with a broad, shaking rump who I guessed to be his mother carrying things out of the house: boxes, TVs, something covered in a baby blanket. I felt lame for wanting to be acknowledged in some way, for watching him shut them all in the van without looking back.