“I told her about my life, I read into her ear the first drafts of my Sunday columns in which, without my saying so, she and she alone was present.”

“From the moment I told her about my dad, it was as if her whole body sighed in relief. As if someone else’s misery comforted her, made her feel as if she wasn’t alone.”

“I think about her. I think about the first time I saw her.. I had a book in my hand and I was reading and for some reason I looked up...She didn't see me. She didn't see me, but I saw her.”

“I'll just go over to the Duke's," I said. "Her parents already told me I could stay there. I'll go over there and open all my presents, and talk about how my parents neglect me, and then maybe the Duke will give me some of her presents because she feels so bad about how my mom doesn't love me.”

“Hey back,' I say, my voice low beside her ear. She shivers. I love that.”

“Reading is the first to go," my mother used to say, meaning that it was a luxury the brain dispensed with under duress. She claimed that after my father died she never again picked up anything more demanding than the morning paper. At the time I had thought that was sort of melodramatic of her, but now I found myself reading the same paragraph six times over, and I still couldn't have told you what it was about.”