“There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed-she had reached that point.”

“Being the firstborn gives you great patience. But you reach a point where after trying and trying you say, Patience be damned. Let them suffer their distorted worldview. Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It's a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you know you owe them nothing.”

“There wasn't any point in dwelling in the pain of the past, not when the future could hold suck pleasure.”

“Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It's a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you owe them nothing.”

“You had to exert yourself to see this world. But if you did, if you had that kind of curiosity, if you had an innate interest in the welfare of your fellow human beings, and if you went through that door, a strange thing happened: you left your petty troubles on the threshold. It could be addictive”

“I'm ashamed of our human capacity to hurt and maim one another, to desecrate the body. Yet it allows me to see the cabalistic harmony of heart peeking out behind lung, of liver and spleen consulting each other under the dome of the diaphragm -- these things leave me speechless.”

“The trajectory of her scholastic progress to that point was spectacular and unprecedented, a model for all youth; it was also an invitation to fate to stick out a foot and trip her.”