“We don’t want to know when we will die or when the people we love will betray us. But we’re hungry to know the dead before they were dead, to acquaint ourselves with the dead as living beings”

“Words could kill, he discovered. words could alter reality and therefore they were too dangerous to be entrusted to a man who loves them above all else."

“If you don't have a real enemy, you make one up and spread the word.”

“Those maniacs who run the world are capable of anything.”

“It wasn't my job to judge her. I was her husband, not a lieutenant in the moral police, and I meant to stand by her no matter what.”

“If given the choice of going forward or backward, I for one wouldn't have hesitated. I would much rather have found myself among the no-longer-living than the unborn.”

“Bodies count, of course - they count more than we're willing to admit - but we don't fall in love with bodies, we fall in love with each other. We all know that, but the moment we go beyond a catalogue of surface qualities and appearances, words begin to fail us, to crumble apart in mystical confusions and cloudy, unsubstantial metaphors.”

'Thoughts are real', he said. 'Words are real. Everything human is real, and sometimes we know things before they happen, even if we aren't aware of it. We live in the present, but the future is inside us at every moment. Maybe that's what writing is all about, Sid. Not recording events from the past, but making things happen in the future'.