“I've been an idiot to think that real life could have a happy ending”

“Of all the idiots I have met in my life, and the Lord knows they have not been few or little, I think that I have been the biggest.”

“Mom, why couldn't my story, my real life story have a happy ending - like in the books?""No true love story has a happy ending; one always must die and leave the other. So there's never a totally happy ending.”

“It's been months since I last wrote. I've lived in a state of mental slumber, leading the life of someone else. I've felt, very often, a vicarious happiness. I haven't existed. I've been someone else. I've lived without thinking.”

“And in real life endings aren't always neat, whether they're happy endings, or whether they're sad endings.”

“..I've been trying to argue myself into thinking these things don't matter, A. Really,I have. But I've lost the argument. And I can't keep having it, when I know what the real answer is.”