“So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight - watching over nothing.”

“So I left him there alone to watch history repeat the same events retold again and again on his own.”

“Just friends, just friends. Standing there in the bookstore, watching Seth walk away, I half wondered how anyone could still use that line. But I knew why, of course. It was used because people still believed it. Or at least they wanted to.”

“I walk away from him. It's enormously pleasing to me, this walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will.”

“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”

“He looked different in sleep, beautiful but cold as moonlight. I found myself wishing he would wake so that I might watch the life return.”

“Tonight my wife must watch alone
the full moon over Fu-zhou;
I think sadly of my sons and daughters far away,
too young to understand this separation
or remember our life in Chang'an.
In fragrant mist, her flowing hair is damp;
In clear moonlight, her jade-white arms are cold.
When will we lean at the open casement together
while the moonlight dries our shining tears?”

“Sunlight falling bright
Over village garden walls
Moonlight shower's gold
where leaving waterfalls
People walk in splendour
Under trees hung in starlight.”

“…nothing else left but
to watch eternity
breaking up
into human splinters.”

“There's nothing better than a fight, especially when you're watching it from a safe place. You can yell encouragement! Hit him with the left, he's a big Jessie!”