“But the hole you left behind exists in every room, every chamber of my heart, every corner where we walked together. The hole is like a mirror into another mirror, giving endless form to the holes left in my life. I relive them all, simultaneously, and I have to go to bed for a day.”

“The guilt of moving on seeps into my life every time I do something I thought I couldn’t do without you. Every time I make a financial decision, I take over your job. Every time I fix the washing machine, choose a wallpaper without consulting you, I feel guilty. How dare I function without you! What could you have possibly meant to me if I can function without you? Much less, function well. Every so often I’m overwhelmed with the decisions. In those moments I hate you for leaving me. But I am stronger now, and I like being strong. And for this, I feel guilty. When can I stop proving that I loved you? When will I stop believing that loving you better might have saved you?”

“I've often mused over the idea that madness is actually a sane reaction to an insane world.”

“You take the breath right out of meYou left a hole where my heart should be”

“It had struck me that the world was full of holes, holes which you could fall into, never to be seen again. I couldn't understand the difference between disappearance and death. Both seemed the same to me, both left holes. Holes in your heart holes in your life.”

“I have a hole where my heart should be, she thought, and nowhere else to go.”

“I'm going to write to you about the emptiness that was left when you took my boy away. I'm going to write so you can look into my empty life and see what a human boy really is from the shape of the hole he leaves behind. I want you to feel that hole in your heart and stroke it with your hands and cut your fingers on its sharp edges.”