“She wondered again about her inclination to wish for things that made her so deeply unhappy.”

“Her education only made her unhappy thinking about it - that no matter how much she changed her life, she could not change the world that surrounded her.”

“I had made her so unhappy that she had developed a sense of humor. [-Rabo Karabekian]”

“Pudge," She shook her head and sipped the cold coffee and wine-"Pudge, what you must understand about me is that I am a deeply unhappy person.”

“How a mother comes to love her child, her caring at all for this thing that's made her heavy, lopsided and slow, this thing that made her wish she were dead ... that's the miracle.”

“He thinks about her, at this moment, in her house, a few thin walls away, packing her life into boxes and bags and he wonders what memories she is rediscovering, what thoughts are catching in her mouth like the dust blown from unused textbooks. He wonders if she has buried any traces of herself under her floorboards. He wonders what those traces would be if she had. And he wonders again why he thinks about her so much when he knows so little to think about.”