Quotes from book
Engine Summer

Name: Engine Summer
Author: John Crowley

Engine Summer is a novel by American writer John Crowley, published in 1979 by Doubleday. It was nominated for the 1980 National Book Award for hardcover science fiction, as well as both the British Fantasy and John W. Campbell Awards the same year. It was rewritten from Crowley's unpublished first novel, Learning to Live With It. It has been illustrated by Gary Friedman and Anne Yvonne Gilbert .

“You ask for her secret, though you might not know that's what you're about; and she can't tell you without learning it herself. And she wants not to learn that secret.”

John Crowley book Engine Summer

Engine Summer (1979), chapter 3.2

“What they learned […] was to speak on the phones in such a way that your hearer couldn't help but understand what you meant, and in such a way that you, speaking, had no choice but to express what you meant, they learned to make speech — transparent, like glass, so that through the words the face is seen truly.”

John Crowley book Engine Summer

Engine Summer (1979), chapter 1.4