“It's special because it's not special, and hence it makes Cohen feel special for choosing it.”

“Cohen was on his knees taking a picture of a passing cloud, an unremarkable cirrus shaped as if it were sketched expressly for a meteorology textbook, its immortality assured only through the wild Polish luck of having passed the former concentration camp on the day of Cohen's visit.”

“I feel safe with him because he is so not my ideal and I feel like I can be myself because I'm not in love with him.”

“It's just a passing thing,' Vishnu had told me about his girlfriend's beliefs. 'It's like their way of assimilating into the West. It's like a social club. One more generation, it'll be over.”

“By reading this message you are denying its existence and implying consent.”

“How can we read when people need our help? It's a luxury. A stupid luxury.”

“Here was the tiredness of failure imposed on a country that believed only in its opposite. Here was the end product of our deep moral exhaustion.”