❝ He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.

❝ But I like my stories to be true to life, which means there have to be wolves in them. Wolves in one form or another.
Why is that so true to life? She turns away from him onto her back, stares up at the ceiling. She’s miffed because her own version has been trumped.
All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.
All of them?
Sure, he says. Think about it. There’s escaping from the wolves, fighting the wolves, capturing the wolves, taming the wolves. Being thrown to the wolves, or throwing others to the wolves so the wolves will eat them instead of you. Running with the wolf pack. Turning into a wolf. Best of all, turning into the head wolf. No other decent stories exist.
I think they do, she says. I think the story about you telling me the story about wolves isn’t about wolves.
Don’t bet on it, he says, I have a wolf side to me. Come over here.