He had said this to me before, and as I heard it, I felt as if I were vanishing into all the other times he had said this to me, returning to a singl… - Alexander Chee

a woman with a lover’s impatience with the whole world, a woman who feared when she did not get what she wanted that it meant she was not loved by creation itself; her need for success at seduction was like her need for dinner or breakfast.

1. Sometimes music is needed.
2. Sometimes silence.
3. A novel, like all written things, is a piece of music, the language demanding you make a sound as you read it. Writing one, then, is like remembering a song you've never heard before.

I was unsure how they fed themselves, what they would eat and drink, they were not unsure at all and this terrified me. I