“When Melinda filed for divorce, she wrote down only two words as her reason for seeking a dissolution of our two-year marriage: Incontrovertibly self-absorbed. Or is that three words? No matter. The question I have is: Did she mean me or her?”

“She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.”

“I saw a lady on T. V. She was born without arms. Literally, she was born with her hands attached to her shoulders… and that was sad, but then they said "Lola does not know the meaning of the word 'can't.'" And that to me was kinda worse… In a way… Y'know? Not only does she not have arms, but she doesn't understand simple contractions. It's very simple, Lola, you just take two words, you put them together, then you take out the middle letter, you put a comma in there and you raise it up!”

“Two lords and an archduke had asked her to marry them, and so, she wrote to me in outrage, had Solya.”

“Just leave her alone. You're annoying her.'
'I'm not annoying her. She doesn't even know how to be annoyed. She's, what, a week old?'
'She's three months.'
'She's three months in our years, but what is she in baby years?”

“When she came to write her story, she would wonder when the books and the words started to mean not just something, but everything.”

“The muffled syllables that Nature speaks
Fill us with deeper longing for her word;
She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks,
She makes a sweeter music than is heard.”

“She gave her a reason to write her own words, to see that words had also brought her to life.
"Don't punish yourself," she heard her say again, but there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.”

“She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.”

“Her reasoning is full of tricks
And butterfly suggestions,
I know no point to which she sticks;
She begs the simplest questions,
And, when her premises are strong
She always draws her inference wrong.”