“It is very difficult to love people who are good to us: it is easier to imagine we are loving people we can condescend to.”

“The conceit of literary intellectuals is to imagine that other people don't have ideas so that they can assume a superior status by having their own...”

“We are not trapped or locked up in these bones. No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us. And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.”

“What if the need to have a hard time is built into human nature?”

“But had I not cut the cord? and now was I seeing what happens when there is no gravity. There is indeed nothing, nothing; you are just falling. My father had said once (or was it you?) that the only emotions worth having are ecstasy and despair. I thought - Well yes, but there is also a terror at this nothing.”

“While wounds can be inflicted easily upon those we love, it's often much more difficult to heal them.”

“There was something about his grandfather's death, about men who love their sons . . .”