The Tsar of Love and Techno

by Anthony Marra

“Because you need a soul the devil wants before you can begin bargaining with him.”

only a mousetrap offers free cheese,

We’d rob a Dubai emirate blind. I’d give my cut to starving orphans because I don’t do it for the money. I do it for the thrill. She’d leave George Clooney and we’d live forever in the desolate beauty of a Malaysian beach. Drinking mai tais for breakfast would never get old. Roll credits. “Your zipper’s down,” she said as she passed me. Endurance, I reminded myself, is the true measure of existence.

she’ll turn her entire life around, she’s never felt more powerful, more capable, more aware of what her life might become if they will just give it back to her. Kolya

Better to deny the existence of objective morality than to live in its shadow. Better to tell yourself that the world of right and wrong is not the world you belong to.

He closed his eyes with the serenity of a man whose desires are modest enough to be met.

Some dignities are earned only by comparison.