“I wish I could remember it. I wish I had a memory of that first violent shove, the shock of cold air, the sting of oxygen into new lungs. Everyone should remember being born. It doesn't seem fair that we only remember dying.”

“I wish I had a memory of that first violent shove, the shock of cold air, the sting of oxygen into new lungs. Everyone should remember being born. It doesn't seem fair that we only remember dying.”

“Everyone should remember being born. It doesn't seem fair that we only remember dying.”

“No matter how lonely it makes me, and no matter how wide and horrific the loneliness, at least I remember who I am.”

“I was born into a world that was already dying; I belong to it.”

“Tell me about yourself.""Myself?" He looks confused."Yes," I say, patting the mattress."You know all there is to know," he says, sitting beside me."Not true," I say. "Where were you born? What's your favourite season? Anything.""Here. Florida," he says. "I remember a woman in a red dress with curly brown hair. Maybe she was my mother, I'm not sure. And summer. What about you?" The last part is said with a smile. He smiles so infrequently that I consider each one a trophy.”

“I should not have loved my daughter as I did. Not in this world in which nothing lives for long. You children are flies. You are roses. You multiply and die.”