“It's not the letter she imagined she would write, but once you start, all the other letters you've ever written in your life have a way of creeping in.”

“After she was gone there would be no one who knew the whole of her life. She did not even know the whole of it! Perhaps she should have written some of it down...but really what would have been the point in that? Everything passed, she would too. This perspective offered her an unexpected clarity she nearly enjoyed, but even with this new clarity the world offered no more explanation for itself than it ever had.”

“We can't be friends. That never works. I'd have to be all careful and brave and pathetic, you'd feel guilty all the time and you'd start being nice in weird fake ways to make up for it.' She was starting to cry, but she felt free, she felt relieved as you can only feel when you have wrecked yourself on the rocks and don't have to worry about navigating anymore.”

“Have you ever written a letter you knew you could never mail but you needed to write it anyway?”

“Imagine it. Use all your strength and imagine it exactly. And it will happen that way.”

“She felt herself needing more and more sleep. When she awoke in the morning, she thought of when she might lie down again - and when she would sleep. She started going to the movies.”

“To Mr. Jones, she said, imagine you're looking up at a blue sky, and imagine a tiny airplane skywriting the letter Z. Then let the wind erase the letter. Then imagine the plane writing the letter Y. Let the wind erase it. Then the letter X. Erase it. Then the letter W. Let the wind erase it.”