You will live as you live anywhere. With difficulty, and grief. Yes, you are dead. And I and my family and everyone, always, forever. All dead, like stones. But what does it matter? You still have to go to work in the morning. You still have to live.

Even if you’ve taken off every stitch of clothing, you still have your secrets, your history, your true name. It’s hard to be really naked. You have to work hard at it. Just getting into a bath isn’t being naked, not really. It’s just showing skin.

You and I, being grown-up and having lost our hearts at least twice or thrice along the way, might shut our eyes and cry out: Not that way, child! But as we have said, September was Somewhat Heartless, and felt herself reasonably safe on that road. Children always do.

You can never know how your clock runs. But it does run - and always faster than you think.

Every morning is a battle between the superego and the id, and I am a mere foot soldier with mud and a snooze button on her shield.

That’s what happens to friends, eventually. They leave you. It’s practically what they’re for.

Readers will always insist on adventures, and though you can have grief without adventures, you cannot have adventures without grief.