Great Circle: the dazzling, instant New York Times bestseller

they wouldn’t like the books if the story gave them exactly what they wanted.

No one in Hollywood cares I was unfaithful to Oliver, but they’ll care I was unfaithful to the brand.”

I’ve always needed to feel I had a purpose, and now I have an undeniable one. Is this why people have wars? To give themselves something to do? To feel a part of something?

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

they’d always been like two adjacent locks in a canal, one opening into the other, pouring off excess feeling, seeking equilibrium, though she was usually the lock in danger of overflowing and he the one who absorbed excess, rose up as she sank down. People thought being twins made them the same, but it was balance, not sameness, she felt with him.

Water was always on its way somewhere bigger, according to Wallace. “Nothing’s bigger than the ocean, though,” Marian told him. “The sky is,” said Wallace.

She couldn’t fathom that others did not see her for what she would become, that she did not wear the fact of her future like some eye-catching garment. Her belief that she would fly saturated her world, presented an appearance of absolute truth.

She considers flying to see Jamie but finds she doesn’t want to leave Alaska, is frightened by the thought of crossing back into her old life. So maybe she’s not quite herself again, not that she’s foolish enough to think there is one fixed version of a person.

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.”