“Memories are like fireflies darting across the surface of my mind, showing me here and there images so sharp and vivid that I catch my breath in wonder before the vignette disappears, sinking like a pebble into the quicksand of regret and recrimination.”

“...the dizzying vividness of the images of places and people that the letters have unlocked. Images so vivid she can only call them memories.”

“The body knows things a long time before the mind catches up to them. I was wondering what my body knew that I didn't.”

“I felt like an undeveloped photograph that he was printing, my image rising to the surface under his gaze.”

“I shall never deny what you deserve, my queen,
never regret my memories of Dido, not while I
can recall myself and draw the breath of life.”
Numquam, regina, negabo Promeritam, nec me meminisse pigebit Elissae Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos regit artus.

“Every year, the memories I have of my father become more faint, unclear, and distant. once they were vivid and true, then they became like photographs, and now they are more like photographs of photographs.”

“I threw the stones down at the reflection of my image in the water
And it altogether disappeared.
I burst as it shattered through me like a bullet through a bottle…
And I'm expected to believe that any of this is real?”

“I do my job like I breathe — so if I can’t breathe I’m in trouble.”

“Literature, like memory, selects only the vivid patches.”

“My soul is a canvas stretched across four wooden corners and tacked with copper nails that sink into the edges of timber like teeth. My art is nothing less than my salvation.”