“Mistakes are like the memories you hide in an attic: old love letters from relationships that tanked, photos of dead relatives, toys from a childhood you miss. Out of sight is out of mind, but somewhere deep inside you know they still exist. And you also know that you're avoiding them.”

“Hiding from genocide inside a Jew's attic, thought Kugel, is like hiding from a lion inside a gazelle.”

“You know there's a different side of yourself you don't want to recognize, a side you don't want to see in the daylight. You spend your whole life doing everything to push it down and away, out of sight, out of mind. You pretend that a piece of yourself doesn't exist. You live like that for a long time. For a long time, you're safe. And then you're not.”

“Still now I send letters into spaceHoping that some mailman somewhere will track you downAnd recognise you from the descriptions in my poemsThat he will place the stack of them in your hands and tell you,There is a girl who still writes you, she doesn't know how not to”

“When the things you love exist only inside your memory they cannot be destroyed or taken from you.”

“You have to know your own mind inside out before you can know the minds of others.”