“Some nights in the midst of this loneliness I swung among the scattered stars at the end of the thin thread of faith alone.”

“It was as if this night were only one of thousands of nights, world without end, night curving into night to make a great arching line of which I couldn’t see the end, a night in which I roamed alone under cold, mindless stars.”

“Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness.”

“She fell asleep, and it was a sleep as thin as the night clouds, dotted with dreams that came and went like the stars.”

“Thirty — the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair.”

“Winter garden,
the moon thinned to a thread,
insects singing.”

“His Imperial and Royal Majesty entered his palace at the Tuileries last night in the midst of his faithful subjects.”

“Some nights, alone, he thinks of her, and some nights, alone, she thinks of him. Some night these thoughts, separated by miles and time zones, occur at the same objective moment, and Ray and Mirabelle are connected without ever knowing it.”

“There is a thin line between respect and fear. Some people end up confusing or mixing the two.”

“An equal scattering of the stars may be admitted in certain calculations; but when we examine the milky way, or the closely compressed clusters of stars… this supposed equality of scattering must be given up.”