“And are we not all “mere guests” upon this whirling earth?”

“People are so busy positioning themselves before the screen and talking on the damn cellphones, communicating, that we're not reading, and in fact we're not really communicating, either. We're not talking to each other. There's just all these screens and wires and technology in between.”

“My husband is pretty particular about his cars. In his opinion, the Mercedes are the best of the best.”

“People can act so nice, bringing you food and all, but in the end they are nothing but buzzards. Waiting to pick your bones.”

“Heyday, now that is a funny word ain't it? Part of a heyday is, you don't never know you are having yourself one till later when it's all over with, long gone.”

“I want to be Tragedy, I want to be Juliet, I want to be Romeo. Thus with a kiss I die.”

“And are we not all “mere guests” upon this whirling earth?”

“God may forgive you if He chooses, but not I. Au revoir.”

“If Strength comes through Suffering, why then I should be the strongest of all women, yet I am the weakest. God help me. Help me.”

“Men may perish, but the world will neither celebrate nor mourn. It will go on.' His smile thinned. 'Would you like to know how?''No.''Animals will swell to fill the void left by men," he told her. 'And over-swell it, perhaps. There will be other extinctions and other recoveries. The sky will clear, but those who see it will not marvel at its many colors. Those ruins will collapse, burying treasures like this-' He waved at the walls. '-and this-' He picked up the spoon from her coffee tray and tossed it down again with a clatter. '-forever, but the world will go on. Years become centuries so easily when no one is there to count them. Centuries become millennia. The forests will reclaim the lands that Men have razed. Rivers will carve canyons across the scars left by this fallen cities. Mountains will rise up, trapping seas to dry under and uncaring sun and leaving the bones of whales to bleach in the newborn deserts for no one to find, no one to be inspired by thoughts of giants and dragons. And still the worlds will go on, and I will go on with it through ages that can only be measured by the coming and going of glaciers. The stars themselves will shift in the heavens and no one will be there to invent names for their new alignments or remember the stories of the old ones, no one but me. In time, the sun itself will begin to cool. Here on Earth, the world goes on and on as its remaining life passes through its last changes and dies away. It will be quiet. And lonely.' His mouth curved into a bitter line. 'But I'll live.''Stop it,' Lan whispered through numb lips.'I read once that the sun will someday swell and engulf this world before it burns itself out. Perhaps I will finally die with it. Or perhaps I' will continue to endure... my ashes pulled eternally apart through the frozen vacuum of space, and I with no more mouth to scream... still alive.”

“There were no words, no capacity to form them, but there were thoughts swelling huge in her head and he was in every one of them, even deeper than he was in her body, because he didn't want to lose here.He didn't want to lose her.And maybe, that death-dark voice whispered to her aching heart, maybe he should.”