“I get glimpses of the horror of normalcy. Each of these innocents on the street is engulfed by a terror of their own ordinariness. They would do anything to be unique.”

“(...)normalcy is an illusion. Each person is utterly unique. A standard of normalcy is something that most people of the world simply will never access.”

“Terror is the desire to save your own ass, but horror is rooted in sympathy.”

“You've faced horrors in these past weeks... I don't know which is worse. The terror you feel the first time you witness such things, or the numbness that comes after it starts to become ordinary.”

“They had each other and there was a love between them that would withstand anything. Alina and I had always intuited, with no small wry pique, that, although our parents adored us and would do anything for us, they loved each other more. As far as I was concerned, that was the way it should be. Kids grow up, move on and find a love of their own. The empty nest shouldn't leave parents grieving. It should leave them ready and excited to get on with living their own adventure, which would, of course, include many visits to children and grandchildren.”

“I do not accept that life has an ordinary shape, or that there is anything ordinary about life at all. We make it ordinary, but it is not.”