"It was funny to see him like this, in love and all, or at least in the grip of a full-blown memory crush. Mostly Steve fell in love with ideas, which he embraced with an infinite care and delicacy. Books had long ago replaced people in his hierarchy of importance. But for every shelf of important poets and new world scientists there have been affections of devastating intensity, often involving people he might have kissed once in a bar lineup at the Shaft, or who walked out of the corner of one eye as he stood waiting to get change at the laundromat. Some, he was nearly embarrassed to admit, he had never actually spoken to, or even touched. But the mention of a name, the recall of an insolent bicep, even a coffee stain on a table might be enough to raise the terrible spectre of longing once more. And each time it happened he announced, with all the cheer of the BBC voice charged with reciting the time to the nearest minute, 'I'm in love.'"

The Steve Machine, a novel by Mike Hoolboom, p. 100