Jill Alexander Essbaum

“Anna loved and didn’t love sex. Anna needed and didn’t need it. Her relationship with sex was a convoluted partnership that rose from both her passivity and an unassailable desire to be distracted.”

“Is that not always the case? Given any two people in a relationship, one will always love more, the other less. Right?”

“Even the ugliest swan is still more beautiful than the loveliest crown on the fence, Anna thought”

“Four simple chambers.A thousand complicated doors.One of them is yours.”

“But pain is an impatient customer. It wouldn't be long before it demanded attention.”

“A man can smell a woman's sadness”

“Anna’s conclusions were these: That fire is beautifully cruel. That fusion occurs only at a specific heat. That blood, in fact, can boil. That the dissolution of an affair is an entropic reaction, and the disorder it tends toward is flammable. That a heart will burn. And burn and burn and burn.”

“It doesn’t matter whether you believe in ghosts. The ghosts believe in you.”

“There are no accidents, Anna. Everything correlates. Everything connects. Every detail bears a consequence. One instant begets the next. And the next. And the next.”