“I kept thinking how they were all names of dead people, and how names are basically the only thing dead people keep.”

“Isn't it weird how the number of dead people is increasing even though the earth stays the same size, so that one day there isn't going to be room to bury anyone anymore?”

“I think about all of the things I've done, Oskar. And all of the things I didn't do. The mistakes I've made are dead to me. But I can't take back the things I never did.”

“You could bury people one hundred floors down, and a whole dead world could be underneath the living one.”

“Think of the beginning of the story of the beginning of everything: Adam (without Eve and without divine guidance) names the animals. Continuing his work, we call stupid people bird-brained, cowardly people chickens, fools turkeys. Are these the best names we have to offer? If we can revise the notion of women coming from a rib, can’t we revise our categorizations of the animals that, draped with barbecue sauce, end up as the ribs on our dinner plates — or for that matter, the KFC in our hands?”

“The mistakes I've made are dead to me. But I can't take back the things I never did.”

“I used to think that humor was the only way to appreciate how wonderful and terrible the world is, to celebrate how big life is. But now I think the opposite. Humor is a way of shrinking from that wonderful and terrible world.”