The Einstein Intersection

“You're living in the real world now,” Spider said sadly. “It’s come from something. It’s going to something. Myths always lie in the most difficult places to ignore.”

Breathing is a fascinating thing to watch in a woman.

“The beginning of the end, the beginning of the end,” muttered Lo Hawk. “We must preserve something.”

“The end of the beginning,” sighed La Dire. “Everything must change.”

I must remember my own origins. Once I was as ignorant as you; I swear, though, I can’t remember when.

If you're going to do something stupid—and we all do—it might as well be a brave and foolish thing.

Earth, the world, the fifth planet from the sun—the species that stands on two legs and roams this thin wet crust: it’s changing, Lobey. It’s not the same. Some people walk under the sun and accept that change, others close their eyes, clap their hands to their ears, and deny the world with their tongues.

It is not that love sometimes makes mistakes, but that it is, essentially, a mistake. We fall in love when our imagination projects nonexistent perfections on to another person. One day the phantasmagoria vanishes, and with it love dies.

In myths things always turn into their opposites as one version supersedes the next.

“All life is a rhythm,” she said as I sat up. “All death is rhythm suspended, a syncopation before life resumes.”

Difference is the foundation of those buildings, the pilings beneath the docks, tangled in the roots of the trees. Half the place was built on it. The other half couldn’t live without it. But to talk about it in public reveals you to be ill-mannered and vulgar.