“Now that I knew fear, I also knew it was not permanent. As powerful as it was, its grip on me would loosen. It would pass.”

“I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita.”

“If you knew what I know about the power of giving you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way. ”

“I knew that time would now pass for me differently than it would for him—that I, like everyone in that room, would go on accumulating loves and losses while he would not. And for me, that was the final and truly unbearable tragedy: Like all the innumerable dead, he'd once and for all been demoted from haunted to haunter.”

“I remember wishing the moment would hold forever; that we could be fixed there, laughing and irredescent... Then I got panicky because I knew it would pass; that it was passing already.”

“I tried to imagine him capital-S Somewhere as we prayed, but even then I could not quite convince myself that he and I would be together again. I already knew too many dead people. I knew that time would now pass for me differently then it would for him- that I, like everyone in that room, would go on accumulating loves and losses while he would not. And for me, that was the final and truly unbearable tragedy: Like all the innumerable dead, he'd once and for all been demoted from haunted to haunter.”