“Because we both knew that sometimes the lies you tell are less frightening than the loneliness you might feel if you stopped telling them.”

“You can never tell how you sound over the phone, that evil piece of machinery, and I would stop using one, we all would, if only there weren't these great distances we need to put between us and the people we need to talk to.”

“...Maybe this was another reason why people read: not so that they would feel less lonely, but so that other people would think they looked less lonely with a book in their hands and therefore not pity them and leave them alone.”

“I confess this is an unforeseen -- unforeseen and, indeed, I did not foresee it -- by-product of journaling: in writing down the facts of one's feelings, one might leave out facts, and one might also try to convince oneself that one's fantasy is, in fact, one's fact, or at least a fact among other facts, other facts that are, in fact, facts, making it most difficult to tell the fact from the fantasy.”

“There's nothing as quiet as that moment before one person is about to tell another something neither of them wants to hear.”

“If only my mother had a book to hold, she wouldn't have looked so lonely. And maybe this was another reason why people read: not so they would feel less lonely, but so that other people would think they looked less lonely with a book in their hands and therefore not pity them and leave them alone.”

“When he did that, I didn't hate him anymore, I really didn't, and maybe this is why people do so many hateful things to the people that who love them: because it's so easy to stop hating someone if you've already started loving them.”