A wrinkled man lie atop an ivory-clad mattress, matched sheets covered his body, matched hair covered his head.

Useless.

[He] practiced aromatherapy and licentiousness, in no particular order.

Writing as a form of imaginative hatred

On Saturdays, we pull out big white poster boards, magic markers, and draw babies.

Throw them up there but try to make it look tidy. Try to become a little bit paranoid, just enough that you slightly overestimate how much they think of you at all.

She looks exactly like my sister, though I do not have a sister.

I don’t personally know any models—let alone any supermodels—at this point in my life but some years back my father, who was working for the Woolite Corporation, was in charge of hiring models for them.

I have always admired flat-chested women.

San Bruno avenue, six shops in eight blocks. Those Vietnamese ladies thrive on the pedicure trade.

The chipping sound started around the time Susannah reached puberty. Not all at once, it was just now and then at first.“What's that noise?” she'd say, and everyone would cock their heads to listen. Her mother eventually took her to the doctor. He said it…

We fold it end over end, meeting in the middle where she takes it, and I let go...

I know this is going to sound crazy, possibly because it is crazy, but still, please hear me out. I'm a relatively sane person. Sane as any of you, or I was. Just, what I'm saying is that anything that happened to me could happen to you, and you might do the same things I…

...the loving and very painful hurt of our daily sustenance

Back when they were younger, David was always gushing about every little thing in his head, and his openness appealed to her as much as his muscular frame did. But after that year they spent apart, he was always ... smiling. Smiling and vague.