“Mom told me, “It probably gets pretty lonely to be Grandma, don’t you think?” I told her, “It probably gets pretty lonely to be anyone.”

“I think it's very pretty.Can it be pretty if no one thinks it's pretty?I think it's pretty.If you're the only one?That's pretty pretty.And what about the boys? Don't you want them to think you're pretty?I wouldn't want a boy to think I was pretty unless he was the kind of boy who thought I was pretty.”

“I wouldn't want a boy to think I was pretty unless he was the kind of boy who thought I was pretty.”

“Mom said, "His spirit is there," and that made me really angry. I told her, "Dad didn't have a spirit! He had cells!" "His memory is there." "His memory is here," I said, pointing at my head. "Dad had a spirit," she said, like she was rewinding a bit in our conversation. I told her, "He had cells, and now they're on rooftops, and in the river, and in the lungs of millions of people around New York, who breathe him every time they speak!”

“Now that I'm thinking about it," I told Gerald, "they could make an incredibly long limousine that had it's back seat at your mom's VJ and it's front seat at your mausoleum, and it would be as long as your life.”

“I don't know how late it got.I probably fell asleep, but I don't remember. I cried so much that everything blurred into everything else. At some point she was carrying me to my room. Then I was in bed. She was looking over me. I don't believe in God, but I believe that things are extremely complicated, and her looking over me was as complicated as anything ever could be. But it was also incredibly simple. In my only life, she was my mom, and I was her son.”

“I feel too much. That's what's going on.' 'Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel in the wrong ways?' 'My insides don't match up with my outsides.' 'Do anyone's insides and outsides match up?' 'I don't know. I'm only me.' 'Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and outside.' 'But it's worse for me.' 'I wonder if everyone thinks it's worse for him.' 'Probably. But it really is worse for me.”