The key to a successful relationship isn’t just in the words, it’s in the choice of punctuation. When you’re in love with someone, a well-placed question mark can be the difference between bliss and disaster, and a deeply respected period or a cleverly inserted ellipses can prevent all kinds of exclamations.

We have fallen through the surface of want and are deep in the trenches of need.

The thing about champagne is that it is the ultimate associative object. Every time you open a bottle of champagne, it’s a celebration, so there’s no better way of starting a celebration than opening a bottle of champagne. Every time you sip it, you’re slipping from all those other celebrations. The joy accumulates over time.

The slight acne scars. The penny-sized, penny-shaped birthmark right above your knee. The dot below your shoulder that must have been from when you had chicken pox in third grade. The scratch on your neck — did I do that?
This brief transcript of moments, written on the body, is so deeply satisfying to read.

I think we endure the banal —
“So how’s your chicken?”
“I’m so tired.”
“Lord, it’s cold.”
“Where were you?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Have you been waiting long?”
— as a way of skirting around the bane.

These kinds of fights can never be won—even if you’re the victor, you’ve hurt the other person, and there has to be some loss associated with that.

To hate” was a transitive verb. Anger needed an anchor, a plug, a wall. (I am angry because of ____.) Otherwise you had a beam of red feeling searching vainly through the universe. You had a heart that shot red light into space.

I was a fairy-minded kid, a comic book kid, and I had a bad habit of looking for augurs and protectors where there were none.

Halley believed that a kiss was the beginning of a story, the story, good or bad, short or long, of an us, and once begun, you had to follow it through to the end.

I’d sometimes reach the end of a chapter, look up, and be startled by my surroundings; while inside a fictional world, I had forgotten what I’d become.