“I suppose at some point, we all have to decide which memories - real or otherwise - to hold on to, and which ones to let go.”

“We live, I suppose, in the unconfessed hope that the rules will at some point be broken, along with the normal course of things and custom and history, and that this will happen to us, that we will experience it, that we — that is, I alone — will be the ones to see it. We always aspire, I suppose, to being the chosen ones, and it is unlikely otherwise that we would be prepared to live out the entire course of an entire life, which, however short or long, gradually gets the better of us.”

“If we actually thought about every decision we made, we'd be paralyzed ... You have to decide which decisions you're actually going to make, and then you have to let the rest of them go.”

“Was it hard?” I ask.“Letting go?”“Not as hard as holding on to something thatwasn’t real.”I gulp. “Can I ask how you did it?”“I just decided, Ava.That’s all.I just decided.”

“I suppose the point you grow up is the point you let the dreams go.”

“The point, I decided, wasn't to have the autobiography or even the memories. The point was who I became when I wrote.”