“Properly speaking, of course, we cannot call it chaos. Grammar is like the air: someone higher up might try to set rules for using it, but people won’t necessarily follow them.”

Even after the ringing stopped, the sound of the bell lingered in the indoor evening gloom like dust floating in the air.

But as is so often the case with men who have made it like this, he was arrogant and self-righteous.

The passage of time will usually extract the venom from most things and render them harmless.

When you don’t have anything to do, your thoughts get really, really far out—so far out you can’t follow them all the way to the end.”

Without wind to move the branches, the shadows looked like permanent stains, destined to remain imprinted on the pavement forever.

Most of the time, the power of fate played on like a quiet and monotonous ground bass, coloring only the edges of his life. Rarely was he reminded of its existence.

Bird

The last thing I wanted to do was think.