“I wish for a moment that time would lift me out of this day, and into some more benign one. But then I feel guilty for wanting to avoid the sadness; dead people need us to remember them, even if it eats us, even if all we can do is say "I'm sorry" until it is as meaningless air.”

“I feel guilty for wanting to avoid the sadness, dead people need us to rememer them, even if it eats us, even if all we can do is say “I am sorry”, until its as meaningless as air.”

“...dead people need us to remember them, even if it eats us, even if all we can do is say I'm sorry until it is as meaningless as air”

“I'm not sure I would put it that way. When we get over something, we move on, we put it behind us. Do we leave the dead behind or do we take them with us? I think we take them with us. They accompany us. They remain with us, if in another form. We have to learn to live with them and their deaths.....I think of them every day, I wonder what they would say at a given moment. I ask them for advice, even today, at my age, when it will soon be time to be thinking of my own death"...”

“I can't imagine us saying these things to each other out loud. But even if I can't imagine hearing these words, I can imagine living them. I don't even picture it. Instead I'm in it. How I feel with him here. That peace. It would be so happy, and it makes me sad because it only exists in words.”

“Yet the French have managed to be involved without becoming obsessive. They assume that even good parents aren't at the constant service of their children, and that there's no need to feel guilty about this. "For me, the evenings are for the parents." one Parisian mother tells me. "My daughter can be with us if she wants, but it's adult time.”