“I'm fine with being alone," he insists. "I like the company I keep. Most people need constant distractions, because if they slow down long enough to evaluate their lives, it makes them internally combust. Like if you folded them inside out, you'd find a huge monster inside. A train wreck.”

“You were brought up to think love and family are about protection. Like you need to hold people close in order to care about them. But that's just living inside a bubble. It's control. I was brought up to think love is trusting people enough to let them go.”

“I know a few things about ghosts. The only way to stop them getting inside you is to spend every second of the day thinking about something else. Fighting like that makes you tired, and it doesn't matter how hard you fight anyway. They chip till they make a crack, and before you know it there's a ghost squatter in your living room. It's hard to get them out. Hard because they settle in. Hard because you like the company.”

“The people you love become ghosts inside of you, and like this you keep them alive.”

“He said something I remember very clearly. "Self esteem is overrated. Anyone will think they color great if enough people tell them. Artificial praise. Down inside, compliments like that are hollow.”

“At the bakery it's just me. It's a small place. Just me and the raspberry horns and the tourtiere pies and my cigarette going in the ashtray near the black sink. Every once in a while a car passes through the dark street outside the storefont windows, but that's pretty much all I see of people while I'm there, until the end of my shift at eight when Monica shows up to open the store for the day. A solid twelve hours by myself, nothing but the radio to keep me company, and I like it just fine, being alone. It's even better in the winter, during a storm, when the snow piles up outside and no cars come by at all. Inside the bakery it's warm and there's plenty to keep my hands busy. Times like that, for all I can tell I'm the only person left on earth. I could go on making pies and watching the snow pile up until the end of time, so long as there was enough coffee on hand. I don't need company like some people seem to.”