“With the death of my father, it wasn't just the objects of everyday life that had changed; even the most ordinary street scenes had become irreplaceable mementos of a lost world whose every detail figured in the meaning of the whole.”

“The sense of literary creation is to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the kindly mirrors of future times; to find in the objects around us the fragrant tenderness that only posterity will discern and appreciate in far-off times when every trifle of our plain everyday life will become exquisite and festive in its own right: the times when a man who might put on the most ordinary jacket of today will be dressed up for an elegant masquerade.”

“I think that here lies the sense of literary creation: to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the kindly mirrors of future times; to find in the objects around us the fragrant tenderness that only posterity will discern and appreciate in the far-off times when every trifle of our plain everyday life will become exquisite and festive in its own right: the times when a man who might put on the most ordinary jacket of today will be dressed up for an elegant masquerade.”

“Three years ago, I had thought I lost my whole world, but it all actuality I was saved. Saved from death and a life full of lies. Three years ago fate stepped in.”

“It was as if Simon had become my nightlight; even when he wasn't with me, he was illuminating the world so that I no longer feared it.”

“And toward the evening of the same day, all the world's teletypes received a communication: "Death was a result of natural causes." It wasn't said whose death, but the world surmised.”