“It was taken some time ago.”

Atwood, Margaret. Selected Poems, 1965-1975. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

“I was 50 years old and hadn’t been to bed with a woman for four years.”

Bukowski, Charles. Women. Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press, 1978.

“INT. CLASSROOM-DAY A private school.”

Anderson, Wes and Owen Wilson. Rushmore. London: Faber, 1999.

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

García, Márquez and Gregory Rabassa. One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York: Perennial Classics, 1998.

“Anyone who watches even the slightest amount of TV is familiar with the scene: An agent knocks on the door of some seemingly ordinary home or office.”

Sedaris, David. Me Talk Pretty One Day. Boston: Back Bay Books, 2001.

“We were on our way to the colmado for an errand, a beer for me tío, when Rafa stood still and tilted his head, as if listening to a message I couldn’t hear, something beamed in from afar.”

Diaz, Junot. Drown. New York: Riverhead Books, 1997.

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.”

Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. New York: VintageBooks, 1997.

“A drawing-room in Second Empire style.”

Sartre, Jean. No Exit, and Three Other Plays. New York: Vintage International, 1989.

“A first edition copy of The Royal Tenenbaums.”

Anderson, Wes and Owen Wilson. The Royal Tenenbaums. London: Faber & Faber, 2002.

“A strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sorrow.”

Sagan, Francoise. Bonjour Tristesse. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001.