“With all the lit­tle facts we learned, we nev­er had the time to think. None of us ev­er con­sid­ered what life would be like clean­ing up af­ter a stranger ev­ery day. Wash­ing dish­es all day. Feed­ing a stranger’s chil­dren. Mow­ing a lawn. All day. Paint­ing hous­es. Year af­ter year.”

“We were all so wor­ried about our worst fears, squeez­ing frogs, eat­ing worms, poi­sons, as­bestos, we nev­er con­sid­ered how bor­ing life would be even if we suc­ceed­ed and got a good job.”

“We thought all this teaching was to make us smart. What it did was make us stupid. With all the little facts we learned, we never had the time to think.”

“We know not whether laws be right Or whether laws be wrong All we know who lie in gaol Is that the walls are strong And each day is like a year A year whose days are long.”

“When the last autumn of Dickens's life was over, he continued to work through his final winter and into spring. This is how all of us writers give away the days and years and decades of our lives in exchange for stacks of paper with scratches and squiggles on them. And when Death calls, how many of us would trade all those pages, all that squandered lifetime-worth of painfully achieved scratches and squiggles, for just one more day, one more fully lived and experienced day? And what price would we writers pay for that one extra day spent with those we ignored while we were locked away scratching and squiggling in our arrogant years of solipsistic isolation?Would we trade all those pages for a single hour? Or all of our books for one real minute?”

“The years of her life tumbled out onto the floor like marbles that she would never be able to gather up again in one bowl. The years of her life had been a made puzzle that one day gets unmade, the pieces all scattered.”