His lips are moist, as though he were stewing on more insults.

All she can think about is why it ever occurred to her to dress like this in public.

He checked Mel’s Instagram and Twitter accounts again, waiting anxiously for her to post something, anything.

It should be patently obvious to anyone but the most resolutely blind that he is not aching with impatience to go to the house of the Lord.

JB was the one to start that fire inside my head.

“When you go in search of food, you must do so at night, and you must only go with your head and intestines.”

The family no longer knew Alexandre, lost for so long in his illness.

She tapped the photo and said, “When I am dead, this is the photo of me I want you to keep.”

Whatever you do in Turkey, you do it alone.

Pretty much everyone knew Saw Ai’s family had problems.

Who would smile like that after such a thing?

Why couldn’t Mama just leave Father?

On this terrible morning, everything is relentless.

In your opinion, why'd he do it?

It's your skin I feel sliding beneath my soapy palms.

The rhythmic flow of Shadow Heights was something she often missed and longed for while she was in Joburg.

My departure had nothing to do with you or your brother.

From that day on, her memories of Danchen were frozen.

I'm not like you, Pak.

“The central server is under attack and receiving commands to self-destruct.”

Listen, all of you, to what will later be said of the Forsaken by one of their descendants.

Their nayffara is a flutelike instrument heavy with history, deeply immersed in sorrow.

Depleted as they were, they realized that they had to either team up or go under.

What you are witnessing is the last face of the Earth.

Karen says she’s seen it when the souls begin their perambulations.

This last shift, the boats came in all night and we ran out of everything.

That same month, she realizes that she’s never going to stop striving as long as she’s in Reykjavik.

When Böddi came back to Iceland a month later, he was engaged.

He gets irritated, even seems hurt, if I put on makeup, and he asks accusingly, “Who are you doing that for?”

i come from a family built on longing.

Even though I hate her, my mother probably wrote me letters that she never sent.

So began many long months of conversation between Alberte and his horse.

“I don’t know where to start.”

He can run from this business but he can’t hide.

The troika was the Holy Trinity of its time.

People get killed for less nowadays . . .

You’ve got to act fast in this city.

Driving here, did you know you'd die today?

I am the same sort of export as a Kalashnikov rifle or our great suicidal writers.

It wasn’t a plane at all, but a car flying through the sky.

At that moment, there was another whistling sound, followed by a huge explosion.

She could not have known that the caller at the other end of the phone was about to faint.

It is one of those days when the winter sun is gorgeous, and you don’t want to even think of death.

Is it a boy or a girl?

This man must be high on something, I thought.

She is a woman I have watched for many years, and for as many years she has been unaware of me.

Women are forbidden from setting foot in the swamp.

She hovers overhead, aimless, surrendering herself to fate.

I didn’t go to the dorms as I had planned; my feet led me to the river.

Rain was no longer rain!

The shock that was yet to come had long ago passed her by.

“Get it through your head: God and me, we’re the same person.”

What use is it for us humans to cling to our freedom in the midst of all this trash?

Nobody knows why he went to such great lengths.

The old woman refused to wear any clothing she had not sewn herself.

Ever since our orgasms became supernatural, we’ve been taking better care of our energies.

The wars never ceased, the surveillance and control wrought by our digital world eroded our liberties, unemployment and poverty grew.

Being with you is like being on an island, a quarantine island.

Silvio wanted to escape, race across the sown fields with his long rhea legs until he reached some place where no one could see him.

They looked at me like I was sick.