"'Not for you,' Lila replies ardently, 'you're my brilliant friend, you have to be the best of all, boys and girls.'"

"I knew - perhaps I hoped - that no form could ever contain Lila, and that sooner or later she would break everything again."

"Lila shook her head skeptically. She was trying to understand, we were both trying to understand, and understanding was something that we loved to do."

"She took the facts and in a natural way charged them with tension; she intensified reality as she reduced it to words, she injected it with energy."

"Nowhere is it written that you can't do it."