“... the hopeful young author had no doubt that books might change the world.”

“How crucial for us to rehearse the future, in words.Never to doubt that you will live to utter them.Never to doubt that you will tell your story.”

“The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome" doubt.”

“And we can read - there is always the prospect of escape, through books.""Books are not a means of 'escape', Meta! Books are a means of knowledge, and of learning how to cope with the future.”

“To the young there are no degrees of old just as there are no degrees of dead - either you are, or you are not.”

“There could be no romance in the terrible possibility that Gretel Nissenbaum had fled on foot, alone, not to her family but simply to escape from her life; in what exigency of need, what despondency of spirit, no name might be given it by any who have not experienced it.”

“I was trying not to be happy, hopeful. I did not believe I deserved happiness or even hope, if you knew my soul.”