Like constellations. It’s impossible to ever fully explain yourself while you’re alive, and then once you’re dead, forget about it—you’re at the mercy of the living.”

She ran her hand over her shorn head again, felt a stirring of pride mixed up with the pressure that was tightening in her like a bolt being turned into place. Her hair was a declaration, not an admission. All things should be declarations, not admissions.

Jamie found he liked how the people he drew gave him permission to look closely and without hurry at their faces. He liked how people became vulnerable when they were about to be drawn, revealed more than they intended with their little adjustments. They sat up straighter or slouched, met his eye or evaded it. They seemed to become more themselves

She was at an age when the future adult rattles the child’s bones like the bars of a cage.

we don’t always notice beginnings. Endings are usually easier to detect.

bibliomancer,

I almost don’t want to admit how much I’ve been enjoying London. The mood is exuberant, isn’t it? I want to say careening. Do you know what I mean? I guess when people are being reminded all the time they might die—they will die—they make more of an effort to be alive.

Her hair was a declaration, not an admission.

That night we were late to dinner with Oliver because we’d been in bed. But we weren’t having sex when we lost track of time. I mean, we’d had sex, but we were lying there talking, making those first big careless, gleeful excavations when everything about someone is new and unknown, before you have to get out your little picks and brushes, work ted