“The easiest thing is to say no. What's not so easy is telling yourself to stop.”

“Witnessing the pain of others is the very least you can do in this world. It's how you know that when your own turn comes, someone will be there with you.”

“We were jigsawed, meant to fit together, making a whole picture.”

“As soon as I saw him again I could forget all this existed; I would be calm. Was that a definition of love: a force that can drug you with calm and help you forget all the sandpaper realities of the world?”

“there was daunting poverty, and there was haunting wealth and the narrator warned her to keep to herself”

“If one day I should hear the hacker's slow, booted step on the stair, perhaps I'll suggest a cup of tea and try to get the story of his life.”

“His cup of tea did not include the dregs, though the dregs are the tea. His brew was nothing but vapor.”