“And be thinking, remembering. Trying to. All difficult dark stuff, stories stuffed away, like old socks into old pillowcases. Not quite knowing the weight of truth in them much more. And things that I have let be a long time in the interests of happiness, or at least that daily contentment that I was once I do believe mistress of”

“People who have only good experiences aren't very interesting. They may be content, and happy after a fashion, but they aren't very deep. It may seem a misfortune now, and it makes things difficult, but well--it's easy to feel all the happy, simple stuff. Not that happiness is necessarily simple. But I don't think you're going to have a life like that, and I think you'll be the better for it. The difficult thing is to not be overwhelmed by the bad patches. You must not let them defeat you. You must see them as a gift--a cruel gift, but a gift nonetheless.”

“And if college is all wrong for you, if you really don't like it in the way you fear, well - it won't be a waste to have gone. Having bad experiences sometimes helps; its makes it clearer what it is you should be doing. I know that sounds very Pollyannaish but it's true. People who have had only good experiences aren't very interesting. They may be content, and happy after a fashion, but they aren't very deep. It may seem a misfortune now, and it makes things difficult, but well - it's easy to feel all the happy, simple stuff. Not that happiness is necessarily simple. But I don't think you're going to have a life like that, and I think you'll be the better for it. The difficult thing is to not be overwhelmed by the bad patches. You mustn't let them defeat you. You must see them as a gift - a cruel gift, but a gift nonetheless.”

“The imagined memories had to have as much weight as the real, or we had to at least pretend they did to such a degree that they just very well might have. And so I never questioned Angela about that particular story, or about all the troubling things that it pointed to, content to believe that at least in this version things worked for her better than they did in the one I never heard.”

“The old woman had an old dog, but he hardly counted any more. He was so old that he looked like a stuffed dog. Once I took him for a walk down to the store. It was just like taking a stuffed dog for a walk. I tied him up to a stuffed fire hydrant and he pissed on it, but it was only stuffed piss.”

“Since a good part of my life has been wasted dealing with fools just like them, it's not worry I feel but weariness as I watch the approach of one more episode in the old, tired story of men who try to beat life, the smart ones who think they know it all and die with a look of surprise on their faces: at the final moment they always see the truth - they never really understood anything, never held anything in their hands. An old story, old and boring.”