“It was psychological trick called empathic listening. You say what the person is feeling so they feel understood.”

“The important thing is not whatever nonsense the voices are saying, but what the voices are feeling.”

“All along — not only since she left, but for a decade before — I had been imagining her without listening, without knowing that she made as a poor a window as I did. And so I could not imagine her as a person who could feel fear, who could feel isolated in a roomful of people, who could be shy about her record collection because it was too personal to share. Someone who might have read travel books to escape having to live in the town that so many people escape to. Someone who — because no one thought she was a person — had no one to really talk to.”

“Caroline was always moody and miserable, but I liked it. I liked feeling as if she had chosen me as the only person in the world not to hate, and so we spent all this time together just ragging on everyone, you know?”

“What's the pleasure?' I asked.'Planning, I guess. I don't know. Doing stuff never feels as good as you hope it will feel.”

“But it was sure a privilege to love him, huh?" I nodded into his shirt."Gives you an idea how I feel about you," he said.My old man. He always knew just what to say.”

“Hank, when people call people nerds mostly what they're saying is,'You like stuff'.”