“Through engagement with others, literature lets us imagine what it would be like to be different.”

“The passions may be terrible, but the syllables are a relief.”

“Think of being curled up and floating in a darkness. Even if you could think, even if you had an imagination, would you ever imagine its opposite, this miraculous world the Asian Taoists call the "Ten Thousand Things"? And if the darkness just got darker? And then you were dead? What would you care? How would you eve know the difference?”

“Change for your own sake, if you must, not for what you imagine another will ask of you.”

“At the door, there was one of those moment when two people realize that they like each other more than they know each other. This is nicer than the opposite situation, but more awkward. You try to remember the protocol for touching. You hate to gush, or presume to much, yet you are unwilling to let the moment pass without without some gesture”

“...by her family circle. That was my phrase, one that could include me by some stretch of the imagination; 'circle' sounded too symmetrical, but it would have to do.”

“All these weirdos, and me getting a little better every day right in the midst of them. I had never known, never even imagined for a heartbeat, that there might be a place for people like us.”