The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever.

The thinness of contemporary life. I can poke my finger through it.

How language is webbed in the senses. Out of sand-blazed brilliance into quirky minds such as his, into touch, taste and fragrance. He thought he'd linger just a bit longer, let the bath take total hold, ease and alleviate, before he put on clothes and entered the complex boxes where people do their living.Nothing fits the body so well as water.

Ordinary moments make the life. This is what she knew to be trustworthy and this is what I learned, eventually, from those years we spent together. No leaps or falls. I inhale the little drizzly details of the past and know who I am. What I failed to know before is clearer now, filtered up through time, an experience belonging to no one else, not remotely, no one, anyone, ever. I watch her use the roller to remove lint from her cloth coat. Define coat, I tell myself. Define time, define space.

...the half-concealed disasters that constitute a life.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

He told me that I hadn't done anything yet. Hadn't lived yet. All you do is pass the time, he said.

Some people fake their death, I'm faking my life.