One look at each other and it was immediately understood that they both needed a clean slate,,, The obliteration of memory.

I don't know of a greater privilege than being allowed to tell a story, or to listen to a story. They're the only thing we have that can trump life itself.

Sometimes we just walk into something that is not for us at all. We pretend it is. We think we can shrug it off like a coat, but it's not a coat at all, it's more like another skin. [...] All I wanted was to make my life thrilling for a while: to take the oridinary objects of my days and make a different argument out of them, no obligations to my past.

One small cloud, cast out by the herd, limps away to the west.

People are good or half good or a quarter good, and it changes all the time- but even on the best day nobody's perfect.

I think a good novel can be a doorstop to despair. I also think the real bravery comes with those who prepared to go through that door and look at the world in all its grime and torment, and still find something of value, no matter how small.

The point of flight. To get rid of oneself. That was reason enough to fly.