Quotes from Oliver:
This is 2003. This is what the sun looks like, and the stars, nature... This is the President. And this is the sun in 1955. And the stars, and nature,and cars and phones and movies and the President. These are what pets looked like. These are fireworks. This was smoking. This is what it looked like when people kissed. When they were happy. When they were sad.
Anna and I are in a relationship in 2003.
This is what the sun looks like and the stars. This is what it looks like when we eat. When we tell each other the stories in our heads. I was born in 1965.Anna was born in 1971. This is what the sun looked like. Her pets.Her parents.She left home when she was sixteen. She lived here,and here,and here,and here. She had three serious relationships. She left all of them. I had four serious relationships. I left them, too. Or let them fall apart.We didn't go to this war.We didn't have to hide to have sex. Our good fortune allowed us to feel a sadness that our parents didn't have time for, and a happiness that I never saw with them. We didn't know how we learned the stories in our heads, but sometimes they stop running.
And I can really see Anna's eyes in 2003. Her ears. Her feet. This is what it looks like when she says, "I love you," in 2003. This is what it looks like when she cries. When she tells me there's always a new empty room waiting for her. They used to make her feel free. Now they make her feel the opposite of free.
Quotes from Anna:
Can we just sleep?
You don't know me. I like that.
That's a tree. And cars. Another building like this one. People in the building like us. Half of them think things will never work out. The other half believe in magic. It's like a war between them.
- Why do you leave everyone?
- Why did you let me go?
- Maybe because I don't really believe that it's gonna work. And then I make sure that it doesn't work.
Quotes from others:
Elliot: The pen is not your friend. The paper is not your friend.The party is your friend. We're your friends.Your friends are your friends.
- Let's say, since you were little, and you always dreamed of some day getting a lion? And you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait, and the lion doesn't come. Then along comes a giraffe. You can be alone or you can be with the giraffe.
- I'd wait for the lion.
- That's why I worry about you.