“There are friends, but they are people to spend time with, not people to share time with.”

“Any time I let it, the weight of living creeps in and starts to drag her down. It would be too easy to say that I feel invisible. Instead, I feel painfully visible, and entirely ignored. People talk to her, but it feels like they are outside a house, talking through the walls. There are friends, but they are people to spend time with, not people to share time with. There's a false beast that takes the form of instinct and harps on the pointlessness of everything that happens.”

“What a strange phrase — –not seeing other people. As if it’s been constructed to be a lie. We see other people all the time. The question is what we do about it.”

“We spend most of the day together at school, but not in a way that limits our interactions with other people. If anything, we incorporate our friends into what we have between us. We exist as individuals. We exist as a pair. We exist as parts of trios, quartets, and so on. And it all feels right.”

“his train could've gotten stuck in a tunnel or something. it's not unheard of. he's coming from ohio after all. people in ohio are late all the time.”

“People often say that when couples are married for a long time, they start to look alike. I don't believe that. But I do believe their sentences start to look alike.”

“I am like the people in the Winslow Homer paintings, sharing the same room with them but not really there. I amlike the fish in the aquarium, thinking in a different language, adapting to a life that’s not my natural habitat. I am the people in the other cars, eachwith his or her own story, but passing too quickly to be noticed or understood.”