“If I had my life over again[, ] I'd have thought more about words. And thought about them earlier.”

“I thought about the earth then, really thought about it, the tsunami's and earthquakes and volcanoes, all the horrors I haven't witnessed but have changed my life, the lives of everyone I know, all the people I'll never know. I thought about life without the sun, the moon, stars, without flowers and warm days in May. I thought about a year ago and all the good things I'd taken for granted and all the unbearable things that had replaced those simple blessings. And even though I hated the thought of crying in from of Syl, tears streamed down my face.”

“Last night I thought about all the kerosene I've used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I'd never even thought that thought before...It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life, and then I come along in two minutes and boom! it's all over.”

“I am having a quarter-life crisis," I announced to my mother. "My generation never had those, we just had babies and thought about killing them from time to time.”

“And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I'd never even thought that thought before.”

“i thought about life, about my life, the embarrassments, the little coincidences, the shadows of alarm clocks on bedside tables, i thought about my small victories and everything i'd seen destroyed. i'd swum through mink coats on my parents' bed while they hosted downstairs, i'd lost the only person with whom i could have spent my only life, i'd left behind a thousand tonnes of marble from which i could have released sculptures, i could have released myself from the marble of myself, i'd experienced joy, but not nearly enough, could there be enough? the end of suffering does not justify the suffering.”