“After all, memory may be the only thing on earth we can truly manipulate to serve us, so we don't have to look back at ourselves in the receding past and think, What an arsehole!”

“We're always sick and we just don't know it. What we mean by health is only when our constant physical deterioration is undetectable.”

“I couldn't think of anything other than her and the components of her. For example, her red hair. But was I so primitive I let myself be bewitched by hair? I mean, really. Hair! It's just hair! Everyone has it! She puts it up, she lets it down. So what? And why did all the other parts of her have me wheezing with delight? I mean, who hasn't got a back, or a belly, or armpits? This whole finicky obsession serves to humiliate me even as I write it, sure, but I suppose it isn't that abnormal. That's what first love is all about. What happens is you meet a love object and immediately a hole inside you starts aching, the hole that is always there but you don't notice until someone comes along, plugs it up, and then runs away with the plug.”

“The past is truly an inoperable tumour that spreads to the present.”

“He pointed the gun at me. Then he looked up at my hand & tilted his head slightly.- Journey, he said. I had forgotten I was still holding the book.- Céline, I said back in a whisper.- I love that book.- I'm only halfway through.- Have you got to the point where --- Hey, kill me, but don't tell me the end!”

“I dug out an old brown suitcase and threw a few clothes into it, then looked around my bedroom for memorabilia, but stopped when I remembered that the purpose of memorabilia is to trigger memory. I didn't want to be lugging my memories all over the place. They were to heavy.”

“When you put so much effort to forget someone, the effort itself becomes a memory. Then you have to forget the forgetting, and that too is memorable.”