The Candy House: A Novel

But knowing everything is too much like knowing nothing; without a story, it’s all just information.

She struggles to believe that Piers is as real as she is—as full of thoughts and memories and feelings.

In the new heroism, the goal is to dig beneath your shiny persona. You’ll be surprised by what lies underneath: a rich, deep crawl space of possibility.

“I still enjoy being alive, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said. And then, in a phrase that haunted Chris, “But I’m tired of my history.”

We had each other, and in each other we had our mother.

She had always been observant, but now her watchfulness was exaggerated to the point of aberration, like a distended limb.

The fact that so many thoughts could have gone through my head in 3.36 seconds is testament to the infinitude of an individual consciousness. There is no end to it, no way to measure it. Consciousness is like the cosmos multiplied by the number of people alive in the world (assuming that consciousness dies when we do, and it may not) because each o

Alone by choice on Saturday nights, writing by an open window in his studio apartment, Gregory had experienced a kind of euphoria: a swelling, bursting, yearning hunger that had something in common with lust but included everyone, from the revelers outside his window to the carousers down the hall. He was where he wanted to be, and needed nothing e

Roxy marvels at the deep absorption of the players, who never seem impatient. It’s as if the rest of life has slowed to match the pace of the game.