“And I can imagine Farmer saying he doesn't care if no one else is willing to follow their example. He's still going to make these hikes, he'd insist, because if you say that seven hours is too long to walk for two families of patients, you're saying that their lives matter less than some others', and the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world.”

“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.”

“If there is a fundamental challenge within these stories, it is simply to change our lurking suspicion that some lives matter less than other lives.”

“And since we don’t just forget things because they don’t matter but also forget things because they matter too much because each of us remembers and forgets in a pattern whose labyrinthine windings are an identification mark no less distinctive than a fingerprint's, it’s no wonder that the shards of reality one person will cherish as a biography can seem to someone else who, say, happened to have eaten some ten thousand dinners at the very same kitchen table, to be a willful excursion into mythomania”

“Well, he's handsome and rich and you're living in his house, borrowing his boat. You're his— He's your—" he still couldn't say it. Saying it would make it real and then he'd be the other woman, sort of."Father." B supplied calmly."Father? You mean as in sugar daddy?""No, I mean father, as in father, you know, guy who had sex with my mother resulting in my existence." He was less calm.”

“Is that what you think of me? That I care about some stupid fantasy more than I care about you? The dream can change, Bethie. As long as you're in it--- that's all that matters.”