“The plans to lose weight and change personality kept me aloft for two days, only to collapse around my ears. I realize it was only a complicated form ofdenial.”

“A hugely complicated, centrally planned, social and economic system can only be kept on the rails for as long as people believe in it.”

“As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer's long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn't touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown. So I just didn't stop.”

“I had to smile to myself. In only a day or two, life seemed different from the way I'd always conceived of it. Complicated and very simple at the same time.”

“She looked at me, like she was drinking in the fact that I was still here. And I realized I was doing the same thing. The world was collapsing, and the only thing that really mattered to me was that she was alive.”

“The only person I let order me around is Zero!”